


200 Hours

by Sarcastic Ninja (It_Belongs_In_A_Museum)



Category: Misfits
Genre: F/M, Humor, Romance, Sarcasm, Slow Build, Slow Burn, Supernatural Elements
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-12-29
Updated: 2016-06-28
Packaged: 2018-05-10 03:05:15
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 32,094
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5568388
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/It_Belongs_In_A_Museum/pseuds/Sarcastic%20Ninja
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In her opinion, Izzy McCallum didn't belong in community service. Since when did doing the right thing become a crime?  Probably when it involved her nicking a bottle of pills from a pharmacy. No, not that type of pill. The type of pill people--her brother--needed for health, vitality, and all that crap. But what the hell ever happened to extenuating circumstances?</p><p>Well none of that mattered now, did it? The was stuck doing 200 hours of community service with six other delinquents.  She was just there to log her hours and get the hell out of there.  But throw in a freak storm, a couple of superpowers, and a dead probation worker, and things start to get complicated.  Community service just got interesting, and it fucking sucked.  Mostly because of the whole constantly running for your life thing.  And the Nathan Young thing.  Would that dickhead ever just shut up?</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. This Is Going To Be Complete Shit

**Author's Note:**

> I do not own Misfits. Any similarities in content and dialogue originated with the show.
> 
> Also, if you recognize this from ff.net, I am in fact the same author. I started an AO3 account and am currently rewriting the story because apparently three years writing changes your style quite a bit and you look back at your older stuff and shudder.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I do not own Misfits. Any similarities in content and dialogue originated with the show.
> 
> Also, if you recognize this from ff.net, I am in fact the same author. I started an AO3 account and am currently rewriting the story because apparently three years writing changes your style quite a bit and you look back at your older stuff and shudder.

Why the fuck the building was called the 'community center' was far beyond her comprehension. As one was typically given to understand from such reliable sources as 'the internet' and after school specials, 'community centers' were generally charged with promoting feelings like togetherness and cooperation. What togetherness and cooperation were supposed to look like, she wasn't quite certain, but they probably included murals covered with primary colors and sunflowers and smiling children and shit. This place did have a mural, but the paint seemed to have streaked, leaving behind nightmarish demons with manic grins in the place of those smiling children and any sunflowers had melted into a surrealist hellscape.

No, the so-called 'community center' looked much like the rest of the the estate—a dirty, dingy sort of grey that no angle of sunlight could improve upon. And the inside was no better than the exterior. Each light lining the hallways was just as likely to flicker ominously—or ineptly, depending on your point of view—as it was to work properly, never mind the higher than average chance of getting stuck in a storage locker and left to slowly mummify under the constant onslaught of a mildew-tainted draft. All in all, this building was dedicated to the community much in the same way that she was. Reluctantly and against its will.

Two hundred hours. Time to do the maths. That was twenty shifts of ten hours, twenty-five shifts of eight hours, or forty shifts of five hours. No matter which way you sliced it, it all added up to a giant pile of shit. And she would rather shave off her own eyebrows or listen to an entire album by Justin fucking Bieber than spend a minute, let alone six weeks, staring at this god forsaken building. Yet here she was, sun at her back, lined against the railing alongside six other disappointments to society, all basking in the shadow of both the aforementioned community center and their own poor life choices. A fucking buffet of petty crime.

Welcome to community service.

In her opinion, Isabelle McCallum did not belong on that railing in the first place. Was what she had done illegal? In the technical sense, yes. Yes, it was. But it bloody well had to be done, didn't it? Her case was of the variety the term 'extenuating circumstances' was made for. Hell, it was custom built. And had she turned on the waterworks, shown some cleavage, or simply, for a change, opted to act like a marginally functional human being, she might have even gotten away with it. But, sadly, this was not the case. No, she had to be painfully predictable and run her mouth like she always did. Apparently Constable Reggie or whatever the fuck his name was did not appreciate being called an 'insensitive prick' or being told to 'go home to his inflatable girlfriend'. In summation, a court-sanctioned psychiatrist had described her as having a problem with authority. Shockingly this did not serve her well when interacting with the authorities.

Fuck it. None of it mattered at that point. And if someone laid out the choices in front of her, she would have done the exact same fucking thing anyway, down to every horribly misguided detail. But that didn't mean she had to be happy about it, and she certainly didn't have to put on a smile. Especially since her bright red hair in combination with that ghastly orange jumpsuit made her look like a damned carrot. The freakishly pale skin of hers certainly didn't help one bit either.

Izzy leaned back against the railing with her arms crossed over her chest. It was a posture the court-appointed psychiatrist would have referred to as 'defensive', 'hostile', and 'antisocial'. Usually she would just turn her lips downwards into a moody scowl, tell them that she was cold and get the fuck on with it—though that would hardly be disproving the point—but seeing as they were facing some unseasonably warm weather that probably wouldn't have been the best course of action. Especially as nobody gave two shits in the first place.

The sunglasses had been a good idea. As shadowy and overcast as the skies remained—a purplish sort of grey a few shades off from the color of her eyes—the light still seemed to hit her retinas with a harsh glare. On a normal day, it would have been an annoyance, but this particular morning, what with the preparatory shots of tequila she had downed last night, she was not in the best place vis-a-vis light sensitivity and headaches, et cetera. Plus there was the added benefit that the probation worker couldn't tell just how little she was paying attention to his rousing speech.

The man stood between her fellow delinquents and the open maw of the community center as it waited to gobble them whole. He cut a figure that managed to be simultaneously imposing and defeated—squared shoulders that drooped slightly, an intense gaze that barely hid his exasperation. The general attitude went quite well with the speech being given. The words flew by her mostly ignored, but the few choice phrases her brain plucked out of the air were lyrics to a very familiar song. 'Give back', 'make a difference', 'you're all a bunch of scum and should be euthanized'—it was the same parade of bullshit platitudes she had heard a thousand times out of the mouths of teachers, guidance counselors, and social workers, and it still wasn't any more true now than it was then. Hell, the probation worker—Tommy? Timmy? she couldn't be bothered to remember—he didn't seem to believe it. They were all gathered here because they had no other choice, simple as that. And as soon as their hours were up, they would disappear like a fart on the wind.

Great. Now she was equating herself to a bowel movement.

Leaning forwards from her position on the far left, Izzy took in the appearance of her fellow young offenders. On the far end of the line stood a twitchy looking kid who through some unnatural feat of human biology managed to be even pastier than her. Between the slightly bugged blue eyes, blank face, and slumped posture, he seemed to have all the makings of a potential serial killer. Or an accountant. She couldn't quite decide.

After him were two other girls. The first had light brown skin and frizzy, well coiffed hair, her face oddly sultry for the first day of community service what with the ever-so-slightly pursed lips and hooded green eyes. All in all she was quite pretty, and seemed highly aware of the fact. Obnoxiously so, actually, given the way she kept touching up her lip gloss in the reflective screen of her mobile which remained constantly clutched in her perfectly manicured hand.

The other girl—the chav—looked more likely to fight than fuck. Her lips were curled into what looked to be a semi-permanent snarl which, when paired with the contemptuous glare, did not give off an air of approachability. She looked damned near ready to take out the hoop earrings and batter somebody right then and there. The dirty blonde hair was scraped back into a combat-ready ponytail so tight the mere thought of it made Izzy's scalp itch. The makeup look like it had been at least been left over from the night before—foundation that seemed slightly too orange to match her actual skin tone and mascara so dark it had probably been the work of several days of layering. All in all the entire appearance spelled 'not to be fucked with'.

The next contestant was a tall, lanky Irish kid on the less translucent side of pale with a ridiculous smile on his face that made him appear almost pleased to be there. Or he was just an idiot—that was another strong possibility. On top of his head sat a mess of brown hair so curly you could probably lacquer it and use it to open a bottle of wine paired with eyebrows thick enough that they probably made up for the fact that he was not yet capable of growing a mustache. He stood a few inches over the others, shoulders slack, hands shoved in the pockets of his jumpsuit, and altogether seeming far to upbeat for the setting. For some reason he looked vaguely familiar, but at the moment Izzy couldn't quite place him.

On the left of the Irish bloke was some wannabe gangster guy. If she was being honest, the bloke's most distinguishing characteristic was his cap. The thing was comically large on his rather thin face, making him look more like bobble-head figurine than an actual human person. Underneath the had was a face with ruddy skin, an uneven splattering of freckles, a few razor nicks, and a sour 'fuck the man' expression as he glowered at the probation worker. It was a threatening stance his thin physique was woefully unprepared to follow up on.

Last up was the bloke standing next to her. He was taller than Irish, even with the extra few inches that curly hair provided. He seemed to be trying to escape from the lot of them, leaning as far away as he could from Irish, jumpsuit tied off at the waist instead of zipped up like the rest of theirs, but she had boxed him in. The sigh he let out when she sidled up next to him had been one of irritation. His face was a familiar one—chiseled jaw, dark brown skin, intense and focused eyes, well muscled. She was just used to seeing him standing straight an confident rather than slumped. There as no need to speculate about his story. It has been splashed across he papers the last few weeks.

Izzy stared at her fellow delinquents as they bickered and complained, a dulled feeling of dread settling at the bottom of her stomach. These were the people she'd be spending her next few weeks with. Fan-fucking-tastic. She had been holding onto hope for something a bit more quiet, but it looked like she was now taking up residence on the Island of Misfit Toys. The curly-haired one seemed to notice her gaze. He leaned forwards as well, catching her eye and blowing her a theatrical kiss that made her scrunch up her nose in distaste. It was when he flashed her that carefree smirk that recognition shuffled up to her and smacked her across the face. He was the twat from the bowling alley. Shit. The bar for company was set even lower than she had expected.

Rolling her eyes, Izzy collapsed back against the railing and watched mutely as the entire situation devolved. Irish started mouthing off to Wannabe, Diva started chatting on her mobile, Runner-guy opted to wallow in self-pity out loud instead of sticking with the silent brooding, and Chav was—well Izzy couldn't rightly make any commentary on Chav. She had no idea what the fuck the girl was saying. The only one not polluting the surroundings with sound was Twitchy, though she suspected that had more to do with social anxiety then a lack of desire to complain. All in all their glorious new beginning as functional, contributing members of society hit a bit of s a snag when Irish and Wannabe started their sad little charade of a fistfight. Though she could say with pretty high certainty that neither of them managed to land a hit. Neither of them looked like they had the balls to do it anyway. It was more of that idiotic male posturing she hoped to God she'd never understand. As long as they didn't start pissing on anything she could ignore them well enough.

The probation worker made a sad attempt to salvage his little speech after separating the pair, but the magic of the moment—if indeed there had ever been any—had long since disappeared. To be honest he didn't seem to put all that much effort into it. She had met morticians with more enthusiasm. The can-do spirit of the system of criminal rehabilitation was lacking in a big, big way. As was the patience and perseverance, apparently. Izzy could see the frustration mounting behind his eyes, like a metronome that began to tick faster and faster until he got a sort of vaguely deranged look about him. Eventually he sent them off to paint benches, angrily thrusting dripping cans of white paint and brushes into their hands as they filed past the community center. "Anger management issues," she muttered to herself, glancing over her shoulder at him as she trudged down towards the canal.

Groaning to herself, Izzy shoved in her headphones and tucked her discount mp3 player into her bra before crouching before her bench. She told herself to stay positive, but that wasn't a particularly strong part of her skill set. And the day didn't help all that much either. The grey sky left the entire estate looking washed-out, like a polaroid that had been left out in the sun a little too long. But still the sun managed to find a way to hit the back of her neck, making sweat slide down the collar of her jumpsuit and leaving her with the annoying sting of an inevitable sunburn. And why did it make sense to be painting these benches white? Everything on the Estate ended up coated in a layer of dust anyway. The most effective decision would to paint the benches that color.

Maybe it wouldn't be so bad. Maybe the only drawbacks she'd end up with were the occasional sunburn and smudges of paint on her Aviators. She had a tendency towards pessimism, but she had learned from an early age that high expectations are usually met with disappointment. And she had been disappointed enough for this lifetime, thank you very much.

Almost as if on cue, an underwhelming explosion of sound went off right next to her, causing her to look up. "Argh! There's paint on my cap!" Wannabe screeched, whipping the thing off his head and clutching it like it was a damn family heirloom. "This is bullshit!"

He proceeded to stomp off towards the community center in what Izzy presumed was supposed to be a dramatic exit, kicking paint buckets and the like. Though he hit a bit of a snag when he tripped over a shopping cart he had attempted to do violence to. Losing a fight with an inanimate object did not seem to bode well for him. Once he had the cap off, she could see why he wore it in the first place. He somehow managed to make himself look even less threatening without it.

Rolling her eyes to herself, Izzy turned back to her bench but not before catching an eyeful of Diva's cleavage which had been strategically angled towards Runner-guy. Less than fifteen minutes and she was already getting her flirt on. Eyes widening in something vaguely resembling alarm, she shifted where she sat, her eyes falling instead on the curly-haired twat who was leering at the blonde.

"So what are you in for?" she overheard Irish asking the Chav. "I'm guessing shoplifting?"

"Don' act like ya know me 'cos ya don't," the chav snapped back, her voice tense and wary.

Irish let out a quiet scoff, placing a hand over his heart as if she had just offended his honor. As far as Izzy could tell, the deception was twofold: one, that he cared about offending her, and two, for in any way suggesting that he had honor to begin with. "I'm just making conversation," he protested. "This is a chance to network with other young offenders! We should be swappin' tips. Brainstormin'. Come on, what did you do?"

"A girl called me a slag so I just go' into a fight," she muttered quickly.

Izzy exhaled sharply, but otherwise held her tongue. If fucking name calling was enough to get you landed in community service.....Sticks and stones—they had learned that much in primary school. There were better ways to defend your honor, none of which ended with picking up litter by the side of the road.

Irish paused for a moment to stroke at his nonexistent beard, sardonically of course. "Mm hmm," he nodded in mock understanding. "Was this on the Jeremy Kyle Show?"

The wheezing guffaw that involuntarily left Izzy's mouth was quickly turned into a hacking cough, but not before receiving a passing glare from the chav. Her hand flew up to her mouth—whether it was to suppress a cough or shove her fist in her mouth to prevent further laughter, she would never tell. "Naw," the chav replied, her contempt shining through. "It woz at Argos."

"Ah, Argos," Irish replied, nodding sagely. "You know what you should've done? You should've gotten one of those little pins they have an jabbed it in her eye." He waited a few moments for a response, but when not enough attention was paid, be shifted on his feet, waving his paint brush in the direction of her bench instead. "What about you weird kid?!" he shouted at the boy sitting opposite her. "Don't take this the wrong way or anything," he declared in a tone that was definitely going to be taken the wrong way, "but you look like a panty-sniffer." He proceeded to emphasize this point by miming sniffing what was likely the largest set of pants known to man.

"I'm not a panty-sniffer," the creeper replied in a tremulous voice. "I'm not a pervert."

Izzy peered at the fellow over the rims of her sunglasses as he went back to painting their bench. The bloke was paying far more concentration to the brushstrokes than was necessary. He might not be a pervert, but calling him 'well-adjusted' would certainly be a leap. He had the look of the type who didn't get out that much, opting instead to subsist off of personal pizzas and the dim glow of their laptop screen. Plus there was the voyeuristic staring and twitchy demeanor. If she had to hazard a guess she'd say he had some sort of social anxiety disorder, but her uninformed psychological workup was put on hold when Irish began wanking off his paintbrush, pairing it with some guttural groaning noises to goad a response.

"I tried to burn a boy's house down!"

The ambient noises of the Estate, from the traffic to the errant pigeon, seemed to quiet for a moment for the express purpose of letting those words ring as clearly as possible. Hell, even the tinny music blasting out of those shitty earbuds of hers stopped—a pretty damn convenient time to switch between songs. Izzy felt her eyes widen and eyebrows shoot up, taking in the bloke's murderous glare and furiously clicking jaw. There existed a distinct possibility that creeper fit better in the box of 'serial killer' than she had initially thought. At the very least he dabbled in the crazy. Biting down on her lip, she pushed her sunglasses back up the bridge of her nose to hide the look of alarm. Mental note: next time she would not pair up with the pyromaniac.

The aura around them remained thick and tense until the chav's voice broke through it. "Wha' did you do?" she demanded, nodding at Irish.

"Who me?" Irish asked innocently. "I was done for....uh, eatin' some pick n' mix." At that, Izzy couldn't help but let out a heavy snort, making the bloke round on her. "What's that now?" he demanded, gesturing at her with the paintbrush. "You there. What's your problem?"

Izzy stopped painting and pulled out her headphones for the first time since they left the center. She raised her sunglasses to rest on the top of her head so he could see the skeptical look on her face. "Nothing," she replied with a casual shrug. "I just call bullshit."

"Um, excusez-fuckin'-moi, Ginger!" he exclaimed, waving the paintbrush at her with a frantic energy. "I do believe I was in the middle of the stirrin' tale of my most dramatic incarceration...And what the hell do you know about it?"

Izzy clambered to her feet and pushed the flyaway hairs out of her face. "So you're telling me that you're not the twat at the bowling alley who faked a seizure and then tried to escape the fuzz by crawling into the sodding pinsetter?"

A look of recognition dawned on Irish's face and he whirled around wildly, as if searching for a witness. "Do I have a stalker—are you stalkin' me? Now why would you go and do that, love? You're a fit enough bird, even with the sour face. And I'm a bloke—all you gotta do is say the word an'—"

Twat, as she now decided to refer to him, proceeded to bite his lip in a way that could only be described as lewd, giving Izzy no choice but to roll her eyes. "I have better things to do with my time than stalk a dickhead like you."

He placed his hands on his hips and raised his eyebrows in mock indignation. "Well then what were you doin' at the bowlin' alley then, hm? Checkmate."

Izzy shook her head, her mouth falling open in disbelief. "I was bowling, you twat. Is that not the conventionally agreed upon purpose of the bowling alley?"

He pursed his lips and furrowed his eyebrows in seemingly careful consideration. "I don't know," he drawled. "The story still seems a bit funny to me. Though I can see why you'd remember a—" he gestured up and down his form "—a body like this one."

"Not so much," she replied, crouching down by the bench. "It wasn't exactly displayed to the best advantage while spasming on the ground. It was kind of like watching a fish die on the deck of a boat. Sad, but not enough to make you care."

The chav let out a bark of laughter and Izzy shot her a hesitant smile, though to be fair it probably came out more as a grimace. She went back to painting, hoping the little exchange had found it's end. Sadly, she had no such luck. Twat swaggered over to her bench, crouching down next to her with a sly smile on his face and placing said face far too close to her own. "How would you like me to display it?" he asked, waggling his eyebrows and blowing her a kiss. "I can think of a few ways, but I'm willing to consider other options. You wouldn't happen to have any suggestions, would you love?"

Izzy returned his smile, but hers remained icy. "In the middle of the road during peak traffic hours?" she supplied innocently.

Twat feigned a wounded gasp, clasping his hand over his heat. "Hey!" he croaked theatrically. "Words hurt!"

Rolling her eyes heavily, Izzy flipped down her sunglasses again and began slathering the worn wood in paint. "Piss off."

His mouth flapped open once more, presumably let fly yet another obnoxious comment, but he was cut off by a loud crack of thunder. The two of them looked up at the sky and Twat clambered up to his feet, twisting his neck around as he surveyed their surroundings. Dark black clouds that hadn't been there a moment before were rolling in across the Estate, casting angry shadows. The darkness made the area look even more dirty and depressing than usual.

"What is goin' on with this weather?" Twat demanded, voicing her thoughts.

Another crack or thunder rang out, making Izzy twitch with surprise. She glanced up at the sky again, but her eyes fell on the probation worker who was approaching with a look of extreme frustration. "How'd that happen?" he asked, nodding at the white paint that had splattered across the asphalt during Wannabe's ridiculous outburst. "I mean, you've been here five minutes. It's painting benches," continued with derision. "How do you manage to screw that up? You tell me, because I've got no idea."

Izzy opening her mouth to make another stupid comment that would likely get her in even more trouble, but was interrupted but a sudden crashing noise. Between the shock and the ground shaking beneath her she teetered off-balance, toppling over on her back. "What the fuck?!" she exclaimed, grabbing the edge of the painted bench as she shoved herself to her feet. Wiping her hand off on her jumpsuit, her eyes roved around until they found the source of the noise. What looked to be a chunk of ice about the size of a beach ball fell from the sky and crushed the roof of a nearby car, leaving them with a blaring car alarm and a hell of a lot of befuddled expressions.

That—that was not normal. Of all the precipitation patterns they studied back in environmental sciences, that had definitely been left off the curriculum. She took a few hesitant steps towards the car, craning her neck to get a better look.

"That's my car," the probation worker said in a small, sad voice, like a kid who just had their favorite toy taken away.

Twat laughed giddily. "Classic!"

Izzy glanced around at the others and they seemed just about as freaked out as she was. And for some reason Twitchy had pulled out his mobile and started filming the whole thing with the shitty little camera. She had yet to witness such fucked up priorities.

Just as Izzy's heart began to slow to its regular pace there was another crash, this time just behind her. Shards of shattered ice skidded across the sidewalk and somehow managed to find their way into her socks. As if the experience itself wasn't chilling enough. She wheeled around and stared up at the sky. Ice chunks began to fall from that dark like cannon balls, hurtling towards the earth and crashing all around them. "Jesus Christ!"

"Alright, everyone, let's get inside."

It took a few moments for her brain to process the words. The probation was doing his best to remain calm and collected—an effort which did not last very long. The next chunk of ice to hit the ground sent him screaming with the rest of them.

Izzy took off as quick as she could, breath coming out in gasps and feet pounding against the pavement. She felt as if she was about to tip, always a moment from collapsing to the ground, but she forced herself forward. Fuck. The sky was literally falling. She glanced over her shoulder at the chaos unfolding behind her only to find the creeper swinging his mobile about, trying to catch the whole thing on film. His foot caught on a small bit of protruding brick and collapsed to the ground, his phone skittering away from him. Izzy felt herself stop and she stilled for a moment, torn between the impulse to run to safety and the moron crawling on his hands and knees, searching for his goddamn phone.

"Fuck!"

Gritting her teeth, she turned back and closed the few long strides between them. She grabbed hold of the neck of his jumpsuit, forcefully yanking him up to his feet and shoving him forward. Moments later an ice chunk hit the ground just where the creeper had fallen, breaking through the asphalt like it had been the crust to a loaf of french bread. Swearing to herself, Izzy shoved him forwards again and began to sprint, hands over her head as if that would somehow do something to help her. Somehow the fucker had gotten his hands back on the mobile and was right back to filming, never mind the imminent death looming in every direction. Apparently it wasn't to be bothered with. "Sort your fucking priorities out, mate!" she shouted over the general sound of the world falling apart at its seams.

By the time the two of them caught up with the rest of the group, they were banging on the doors to the community. They were locked out. She really couldn't catch a fucking break. The probation worker was going through the keys with shaking hands. Screaming, yelling, panicked breaths—they all swirled around her until she was dizzy. Panic began to rise inside her, clawing its way from her chest up to her throat, circling her neck and constricting until she began to choke on it. Her heart slammed inside her ribcage and then—BOOM!

A bright flash cracked in the periphery of her vision and all the sudden she was blind, all color and edges struck from her vision. A force struck her from behind, catapulting her into the air. Electricity pulsed through her, starting at the center of her torso and pushing outwards, setting everything from her veins to her nerve endings aflame. She both too aware and not aware enough of the sensation to call it pain—it struck her, filled her, and then vanished just as quickly as she rested there, suspended in a moment. Everything and nothing. Blackness and light. Was she experiencing both or neither?

She crashed back to reality as her back hit the asphalt. That numb feeling of a moment ago focused itself into a searing pain along her spine. Keeping her eyes shut she let out a low hiss, trying to will her muscles to stop spasming. Was she dying? Was she dead? All evidence pointed towards her just having been hit by fucking lightening, so it was fair to assume that she was not okay. Fuck, she must be dead. It was the only reasonable conclusion. Dead. Dead, dead, dead. Shit, at least it was a cool way to go. But where the fuck had she gone?

Tentatively cracking an eye open, she glanced around. Everything seemed the same. If this was what the afterworld looked like, it was a bit of a let down. She had expected at least one fat, diapered baby with stubby wings to flit past her while playing the harp. Unless this was hell. that would make more sense. What was that French existentialist shit Sartre wrote in 'Huis Clos'? L'enfer, c'est les autres. Hell is other people. Shit. Maybe her own special brand of hell was being doomed to an eternity of painting fucking benches with these six shitheads and a temperamental probation worker.

Izzy's one open eye continued to rove until she glanced up at the sky. It had completely cleared—no indications of apocalyptic hail whatsoever. Hell, it was bordering on blue. A relieved sigh escaped her lips. Eventually the experience would become a really cool story she could bust out at cocktail parties—as soon as she started being the type of person who got invited to cocktail parties—but for now she ached like an arthritic octogenarian. Slowly, she pushed herself up on her elbows as everyone else did the same. Car alarms blared, small bits of ice slid off the roof, but Izzy's eyes locked on each and every one of them, and from what she could tell they were all okay.

"I feel really weird," the chav drawled in a dazed voice.

"Yeah n—no shit," Izzy managed to croak out, her hand massaging her larynx. "We just got hit by lightening. I'm no expert, but I'm pretty sure that qualifies as some level one traumatic shit."

The girl shot Izzy a quizzical look. "Level one wha'?"

"We should be dead," Twitchy muttered quietly.

"It's great to have someone around with such a positive outlook," she muttered under her breath. Pulling herself to the sitting position, she hovered over the others and took in their appearance. "Everybody okay?" she demanded through a deep breath. "Do I need to call an ambulance?" Nobody responded, but all seemed alive and intact. Which meant she could lie down again—something for which she was very grateful.

"Hey!" Irish shouted, snapping his fingers at the probation worker. "Hey! I little reassurance might be nice, you know! You're fine! Looking good!"

The probation worker writhed on the ground for a few moments, clearly not yet recovered. He managed to lift his head off the ground a few inches, but couldn't make eye contact with anyone seeing as they were rolling in the back of his head and such. "W—wanker," he managed to force out through gritted teeth.

Izzy's eyebrows shot up, disappearing into her hairline as her body convulsed with a restrained guffaw. Irish, on the other hand, let his jaw fall open, somehow managing to look scandalized. "Did he just call me a wanker?"

"Well clearly his judgement is intact," Izzy drawled, nodding in agreement. "So I'd say we're all in tip top shape."

"Oi, shove it, Ginger!" Irish protested loudly, jabbing a finger in her direction. "We've all just had a brush with death! That kind of shit is traumatizing. This hardly qualifies as the time for name-callin'!"

Izzy stared back at him a few moments with an unamused expression before smacking his hand away. The glaring only lasted a moment as their attention was suddenly diverted by the probation worker. He spasmed—head shaking and face slack almost like a stroke victim's. After a moment, though, he seemed to recover himself. "Is everyone alright?" he asked weakly.

"We could have died, you dick," the diva girl spat, failing to disprove Izzy's initial impression of her.

"Are you aw'right?" the chav asked, showing altogether far more concern than Izzy would have expected.

"You're actin' like a freak."

Izzy pressed her lips into a thin line and nodded. There it was.

Slowly, the probation worker pushed himself up into the sitting position. More than injured, he looked positively baffled. Of all the potential scenarios outlined in the probation worker's manual or whatever the fuck it was they used, 'mass lightening strike' probably hadn't made the list of primary concerns. "Uh, maybe we should call it a day," he muttered.

At that, Izzy bolted upright, the small bits of ice that had collected in her hair sliding down the neck of her jumpsuit and making her shiver. "Whoa, are we getting a full days hours?" she demanded.

The probation worker stared back at her with an expression of extreme confusion. "What?"

"Our hours," she elaborated, shifting uncomfortably as she felt all eyes on her. "We've got a certain number of hours to work in a set number of shifts. Today's one of the shifts, but we've been here an hour tops. Do we get a full days hours?"

The man gaped at her in disbelief. "No, you don't get the hours."

"Ehrm, wot do ya mean we don' get tha hours?" the chav interjected, waving her hand at the lot of them before jabbing a finger in the guy's direction. "We didn' ask to be hit by fockin' lightnin'. Dat's some bollocks."

"Seriously," Diva piled on, jutting her chin out defiantly. "If I'd known I had today off, I'd've made plans."

"Then when do we make them up?" Izzy pressed, ignoring the others.

"I'll sort it out with corrections," he growled, shoving himself to his feet. His legs shook beneath him, but he managed to keep himself upright. "Alright, you lot get yourselves home. I've got to fill out some paperwork."

As the others slowly got to their feet, Izzy stared absently at the pavement in front of her. Fuck. She didn't want to call it a day. She wanted to log as many hours as humanly possible and get this shit over with so she could move on with her life. Given her near death experience, she should probably want to go get drunk in some sleazy, hepatitis-filled bar, but she really just wanted to go back and finish painting that fucking bench. Her fucked up decisions had stalled her life enough to begin with.

"When can we make them up?"

A high-pitched, cartoonish voice probably intended to sound like her interrupted her reverie. She glanced up to find Irish looming over her, a smug smirk covering his face. "Here I was figurin' weird kid for the arse kisser."

"And here I was figuring you for someone with basic logic," Izzy retorted. "It looks like both of our first impressions turned out to he a load of shit." She hauled herself to her feet, disappointed to find that even at her full height the top of her head only reached about midway up his nose. Regardless, she stared up at him, eyebrows arched challengingly. "We don't do the hours now, we have to do them later. I want out of this shit-show as soon as possible. The company isn't ideal."

Without another word, she spun on her heel and began marching in the direction of the locker room. He fell in line, his casual stroll matching her determined gait. "Yeah," he agreed absently. "That weird kid does have a funny look. I bet ya he's a virgin."

"And that's relevant...why exactly?" Izzy muttered with a roll of your eyes.

If Irish noticed her hostility, he didn't make any indication. He just let out a scoff and continued with his jaunty step. "Please, Ginger. That's always relevant." Izzy didn't respond, and the two of them continued towards the locker rooms in a silence that lasted precisely thirteen seconds. Not that his leering didn't say enough all on its own.

"Sooooooo," Irish drawled as casually as possible, draping an arm over her shoulders and leaning in till his curly hair tickled her ear, "we've just been through an emotional trauma. I'm vulnerable. You're vulnerable. I think we'd both be be given mutual comfort if we—"

"I'd rather eat my own toenails," Izzy replied shortly. She gripped his fingers and pulled his arm away, picking up her pace to the point she was nearly jogging.

"Are you a lesbian?" he shouted after her. "Because it's okay if you are! I'm not fussy! Plus we could find another traumatized girl or two wanderin' around the Estate—put together a sort of group thing!"

Izzy didn't bother turning around or shouting back. She just raised her arm in the air and made a prominent display of her middle finger. Making her way back to the locker room, she toed off her worn, fraying sneakers and stripped off her orange jumpsuit, leaving her in a plain white tank top, black sports bra, and black pants. They weren't lacy, frilly, or brightly colored like Diva's or Chav's. She had bought them in a five pack along with some plain white socks, and that suited her just fine. Particularly her bank account, which was currently sitting at an unsettlingly low number. Throwing open her locker, she yanked out her clothes and actively tried not to think about the rank sock lying at the bottom of her locker that morning. She quickly slid into her ripped, motor-oil stained jeans, jumping up and down slightly, and tied the sleeves of that worn blue flannel shirt of hers around her waist.

Plopping back down on a nearby bench, Izzy paused for a minute to take a breath, absently playing with the necklace hanging around her neck. It didn't look like anything special—just a simple, unembellished silver locket. She ran a thumb over the inscription on the back. It used to read 'to my darling Isabelle', but that nervous habit of hers was making it fade away with time.

Fuck. She had hooked her earphones around her neck before all hell broke loose and now the only pressure she could feel against her neck was that of the silver chain. Those things cost her five quid. Fuck. She needed to ask Max for more shifts at the garage if she was going to survive the cold, cruel, perpetual winter that was life on the Estate.

Swearing under her breath, Izzy shook her head and forced her mind back into working order. The two other girls had already dressed—Diva was retouching her makeup and the chav was brushing her hair back even more. Izzy sighed and snatched up her sneakers, lacing them up and enjoying the silence.

"Wot d'ya say?" the chav suddenly demanded, rounding on Diva and advancing with a look of murder in her eye.

"I didn't say anything," Diva snapped, throwing her arms in the air defensively as she slipped past the blonde and out of the room.

Izzy blew out a breath, but otherwise just sat there watching the chav scrape her hair back. It was oddly therapeutic, like watching waves crash on a beach with that slow, steady, calming rhythm. But God it must be painful. Why someone would ever put themselves through that for the sake of a mediocre hairstyle was beyond her.

Suddenly the chav wheeled around, that spark of homicidal rage still flickering. "You got somefin' ta say, yeah?" she demanded.

"I didn't say a fucking thing," Izzy responded evenly, slamming her locker door closed and slinging her bag over her shoulder. She busied herself with her phone, shooting a text off to Max to see if there were any hours available in the garage. Best not to piss off the girl who ended up in community center over an assault, even if the daft cow was picking fights in every direction. Hell, especially if she was picking fights.

"Who ya callin' a fockin' cow?" the chav shrieked, making Izzy twitch violently, almost dropping her phone.

"For fuck's sake, I didn't say anything!" Izzy retorted, holding her hands in the air and backing away slowly.

Swearing again, Izzy kicked the door open and strode out into the hallway, only to find Twitchy, Irish, and Runner-boy all milling about the vending machines and generally failing to challenge the image of the 'errant youth' they had been accused of representing. "Where's the probation worker?" Curtis demanded, as if she had magically been gifted the bloke's timetable.

"Fuck if I know," Izzy replied, brushing past them. "And if I'm not getting my hours, I'm sure as hell not sticking around this shithole."

"Hey what about my offer!" Irish shouted after her. "I've put out a few feelers, you know! Nobody's gotten back to me yet, but it's only been twenty minutes!"

"How about I give you call when I've lost all sense of respect," she shouted over her shoulder.

"Nice!" he called back. "I'm liking my odds, then!"

Izzy shoved her hands in her pockets and strode out the front door of the community center, but what she found made her pause. Most of the ice had melted to some degree, leaving huge puddles dotting the Estate. Except for that crushed car of the probation worker's there didn't look to be too much damage. Stray roof tiles littered the sidewalk, but all in all one could even make the argument that it improved the aesthetic. Sighing to herself, Izzy began to pick her way between the puddles, doing her level best to keep the frigid water from soaking into her socks and saying a silent eulogy for her Aviators that lay at the side of the street, crushed beyond recognition. Her phone chimed from its spot in her pocket and she quickly whipped it out. Text from Max. No help needed today, plenty of work over the weekend.

Altering her route slightly, she turned in the direction of home. Though 'home' was a generous term for it. 'Hovel' suited better. Or perhaps 'multi-purpose closet'. But it was all she had, so she wasn't about to start complaining about it. She would like to say that her stoicism came from some sort of enlightened understanding of the difficulties of others like starving children in Africa, but really it stemmed from the fact that there was just no fucking use in being upset. The way she saw it, life deals you a hand. If it's a crap hand, there's no point whining, because whining sure as fuck isn't going to fix anything. And being bitter just takes too much energy.

For some reason mid-day on the Estate always found a way to look like dusk. The sun was constantly setting, which she tried really hard not to see as a metaphor. Turning a corner, Izzy ducked into the alleyway that served as a shortcut between her 'flat' and the community center. She made it half-way across when suddenly two shadowed figures appeared at the other end. Gritting her teeth, she glanced over her shoulder. Sure enough, there was another at that exit as well. Fuck. No breaks provided today.

Taking a deep breath, Izzy reached into her bag and grabbed her keys, positioning one between each knuckle. Her fist clenched, ready to swing. She continued with little interruption to her step, hoping they would just let her past. Clearly karma had a bone to pick with her, because she was not so lucky.

"Where you off to in such a hurry?" a low, gruff voice asked her.

"None of your fucking business," she replied, trying to push past them. But two hands grabbed hold of her shoulders, pushing her back hard and sending her crashing to the ground. She jumped up to her feet and scrambled a few feet backwards, only to have her back ram into the third one right behind her.

"There's no reason for rudeness," the second one said with a smile. He was thin and wiry with ruddy, splotchy skin and a beanie pulled down so low on his forehead she was surprised he could see. One of a thousand faces on the estate that looked exactly the same. It was the teeth that alarmed her—shiny, sinister white and almost tapered to a point.

"Yeah, well I have herpes," she lied quickly. "So unless you want to be scratching your balls for the rest of your life, I would fuck off out of my way."

She was shoved backwards again, a sharp pain erupting in her back as it hit concrete. "For some reason I just don't believe you," the first snarled. His breath hit Izzy like a wall, all meat, cigarettes, and cheap lager. The panic began to seep into her bones again, so she did the only thing she could. She kneed him in the groin.

The first creeper doubled over in pain, and she lifted her leg, smashing her foot into his head with as much force as possible. He fell back against the wall, spitting and swearing, but one of the others was already on her. She swung her arm and the keys clutched in her hands caught his face. Three tracks of red sprung on his cheek, making him cry out. He rounded on her, grabbing her wrist and smashing it against the wall. Her keys fell to the ground with at pathetic clink. Two large hands grabbed her shoulders, forcing her against the wall and pinning her in place. She tried to struggle, but the odds of one slim girl against two hulking blokes were hardly spectacular.

Her breath hitched as the the first one—the one with the teeth—straightened and took a few steps towards her. He was still smiling, but blood now stained those sharp teeth. "You're gonna regret that," he hissed.

Izzy's heart hammered hard in her chest, her body trembling as adrenaline coursed through her veins. But that feeling—the need to run—was met by another sensation, this one unfamiliar. A strange pressure began to build in her body, trying to force itself out as if the skin wasn't enough to contain it. An engine that had been over-heated, threatening to explode.

"GET OFF ME!"

The words ripped from her lungs, echoing against the walls of the alley. And suddenly that pressure within her burst outward. The hands on her shoulders disappeared and all three of the men were sent flying. Each collided with a wall, giving rise to a sickening crack, and crumpled to the ground. Izzy stood there for a moment, paralyzed with shock. The sound of a car alarm shook her back to her wits and snatched up her keys and ran.

She didn't stop running till she reached her flat, taking the steps two at a time as she flew up the stairs. Once the door was closed and locked behind her, she fell against the surface, her hand on the doorknob keeping her upright as her chest rose and fell. Gradually her breathing stilled, and she was left to look around the interior of her flat.

Everything was just as she left it. Absolutely shit. One smallish room with everything she needed crammed in. Her dirty, second-hand mattress lay on top of that cracked frame she got from those bastards at IKEA, sad and uncomfortable. Her kitchen, blocked off from the rest of her place with that bench she had somehow managed to knick from Starbucks, consisted of a microwave, hot plate, and mini fridge. And lastly there were the bookshelves—cinderblocks and unused planks of wood pilfered from construction sites. She felt the overwhelming urge to splash some water on her face, but the bathroom was down the hall and at this time you could bet your arse the kids from 6E had managed to clog the toilet.

Leaving her shoes and clothes on, Izzy collapsed face-down onto the mattress. She was broke, she was in community service, she had almost been assaulted, she had no legitimate friends other than Max—if that fucker even counted—and with the conviction she had blown damn near all her prospects. And she had been hit by lightening. How the hell did that become the afterthought?

Grabbing hold of the covers, she yanked them over her head and buried her head into the pillow.

Fuck life. Delirium suited her just fine.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter One Soundtrack
> 
> 1) Meet the ASBO shitheads.  
> -~-~-~-Somebody Was Watching - Pop Staples  
> 2) Painting benches, sharing stories.  
> -~-~-~-Bones - Electric Tickle Machine  
> 3) Running for their lives.  
> -~-~-~-Wondering (Dirtyphonics Remix) - Does It Offend You, Yeah?  
> 4) Leaving the community center, passing up the wreckage.  
> -~-~-~-You Gotta Decide - A. Sinclair  
> 5) End of the day, time to pass out.  
> -~-~-~-Straight to Hell – The Clash


	2. I Am Going To Kill You

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I do not own Misfits. Any similarities in content and dialogue originated with the show.
> 
> Also, if you recognize this from ff.net, I am in fact the same author. I started an AO3 account and am currently rewriting the story because apparently three years writing changes your style quite a bit and you look back at your older stuff and shudder. Like for real this has gotten a lot better and I'm excited.

Why the fuck was she still awake?

Her life had gotten to the point that the sheer state of consciousness had become a source of annoyance. The way Izzy saw it, in the aftermath of not one, but multiple near death experiences, she was owed a decent night's sleep. The extreme exhaustion should have been enough to accommodate her. It seemed only fair. But no, apparently she had accumulated sufficient shitty karma for even that small courtesy to be denied to her.

Izzy had half a mind to blame it on the fucking baby in 6C. Its wailing was timed more consistently than her alarm clock, flipping on like a switch at the lovely hour of 4:47 a.m. As such it was responsible for more than a few days of over-caffeination and general grumpiness, but if she was being honest with herself this night's sleeplessness was entirely of her own making. She had dropped on the mattress, fully clothed and with no intention of changing into her pajamas, waiting for her eyes to droop closed and sleep to wash over her. But for some damn reason her mind couldn't give the mental calisthenics a fucking rest.

It rolled around in her mind like a loop—what had happened in the alleyway. Her brain just sat her down in front of an old timey movie projector and played it over and over, like she was watching that overused bit of Charlie Chaplin fall down the stairs. Each viewing was just as ridiculous and mind boggling as the first. It made no sense. She had reached the point where she wasn't even afraid of those blokes anymore. They were kilometers in the rear view mirror. What scared her the most was what she had done to them. The pressure under her skin, the feeling of it exploding outwards, the three of them being hurled backwards like rag dolls. The scene had gone through her mind so many times she couldn't tell if it was real or manufactured. Perhaps she had slept after all and the entire thing was a bizarre dream induced by the thai food in the fridge that had gone slightly off.

Izzy rolled over on her lumpy mattress and gazed down at the cheap alarm clock she had propped up on a stack of old books. Its angry, red, blinking numbers spelled out a number that was, quite frankly, ridiculous. 5:54 a.m. The dim morning light had just begun to leak through the curtains hanging ratty and limp near her head. It hit her retinas, making them sting in rebellion against the very idea of waking up. 

Groaning loudly, Izzy snatched her pillow from under her head, using it instead to cover her face. She took a breath and sank into the mattress, prepared to spend hours there, completely unmoving. But then the fucking baby began to cry again. Resisting the urge to begin bawling herself, Izzy ripped the pillow away and stared again at the clock. 6:02 a.m. The impulse to smash the thing was quashed down—she didn't have the money to accommodate that type of anger. And she wasn't sure if she was angry for the time passing too quickly or too slowly. Either way, it was decidedly inconvenient.

"Fuck my life," she muttered under her breath. After a few moments of self pity, she hauled herself out of bed and wiped at the corners of her eyes whilst trying her best not to think about the state of her hair. There was no doubt in her mind that it had become sentient during the night, twisting itself into a conformation that made her look like a flammable Medusa. She peeled off yesterday's socks, tossing them over her shoulder into some unknown corner, and slipped on her flip flops before grabbing her towel and shower caddy and padding towards the floor's shared bathroom. At the least her insomnia provided one upside. It had been weeks since she showered in hot water.

Latching the door behind her, Izzy gently placed the caddy in one of the less rust-covered corners of the shower and turned on the water. One, two, three, four, five loud thunks of the pipes coming to life and the water spurted violently from the shower head. She tentatively stuck her hand under the spray, waiting for the water to transition from 'boil a crustacean' hot to levels that a human being could viably withstand. She finally stepped under the cascade and sighed. The hot water raining down on her shoulders washed away the insecurities of the day before. Soap stung the small scrapes around her wrists where the men had grabbed her. By the time she stepped out of the shower, she felt clean. Her skin did at least. Her mind was still a rollicking mess.

Stepping up to the sink, Izzy wiped away the layer of steam coating it. The reflection staring back at her, what with the limp hair and bruised purple bags under the eyes, was becoming far to familiar for her liking. The only difference today showed was a small abrasion at her temple where her head had hit the wall. She had never been a particularly shiny or happy person, but now she just looked drained. A few more sleepless nights and she would be just as ashen and grey as everything else in this hellhole. "Suck it up, McCallum," she muttered to herself, quickly wrapping herself in a thin towel and plodding back to her flat.

By the time Izzy had dressed in her usual flannel and jeans, the sun had just begun to make its debut, creeping over the tops of the buildings and making them glow in a faint, cold light. Turning towards her cloudy, poor excuse for a mirror, she dabbed on makeup, covering all signs of exhaustion as well as that fresh scrape. Pulling on her shoes, she sat on the edge of her bed, unsure of what to do with herself. After a few moments contemplation, she laced them up, grabbed her bag, shoved her earphones in, and stomped for the door.

Izzy didn't quite know what her destination was. She just strolled absently between the graffitied buildings, letting her feet make most of the decisions for her. They directed her towards the corner shop where she slapped a few pounds on the counter, collecting a sugar puff bar, cup of tea, and pair of shitty sunglasses in exchange. New glasses perched on her nose, she ripped open the packaging with her teeth and gobbled down the sugary monstrosity before chasing it with a loud slurp of too-hot tea. Eventually her feet found their way to the front of the community center.

Izzy stopped short at the sight of the building, a frown pulling at the corners of her lips. Glancing down at her watch, the frown deepened further. 7:33 a.m. She was a full hour and a half hour early.

Fuck it. Waiting there would be better than waiting at her flat. Her Swedish neighbors were apparently in the throes of homesickness and had taken to eating surströmming, leaving her flat filled with the scent of rotting fish. Somehow the odor of the community center managed to be more pleasant, though not by a wide margin.

Dragging her feet around to the building's entrance, Izzy was forced to stop short a second time. Somebody had opted to treat the building to rather morbid form of graffiti, painting the words 'I AM GOING TO KILL YOU' across the side of the building in ragged, red letters. "Tell us how you really feel," Izzy muttered to herself, raising her eyebrows at the new wall art. One of the shitheads on the Estate had a seriously fucked up sense of humor. There had clearly been a disruption in the migration patterns of psychotic wackjobs of late, because they seemed to be flocking to this neighborhood in spades.

Her stomach still rumbling from her nutritionally imbalanced meal, Izzy shoved her way through the front doors and made a beeline for the vending machines to purchase a water bottle and packet of crisps. Munching idly, she strode into the main room looking for a chair to collapse in. Her quest was soon interrupted, however, by a strange noise. She pulled an earphone out to listen more closely and soon realized that she was listening to the sound of snoring. Loud snoring. Snoring which by all indication was coming from the balcony over her head.

Curiosity piqued, Izzy climbed up the stairs to find none other than Irish, fast asleep and sprawled on the ground in a rather compromised position. The sight was less that flattering. "Oi, wake up," she said, nudging him in the ribs with the toe of her boot.

Irish simply readjusted his position, hugging his pillow closer to him as a steady flow of drool streamed from his mouth. Izzy wrinkled her nose, glancing between him and the pile of luggage lying against the railing. Rumpled laundry spilled out of it, onto the floor. She prodded him again, and this time he just smacked his lips and gave a silly smile. "Oh, yeah, that's how I like it," he murmured. "Just like that, keep goin'."

Izzy rolled her eyes and sighed in distaste. Blokes. They spent 90% of their waking hours thinking about sex and their nights dreaming about it as well. No wonder they kept doing stupid shit—their blood flow was never exactly directed towards the brain. Letting out a huff, she twisted the cap off her water bottle and upended it over his head.

"What the fuck!" he cried, holding his hands over his face to halt the onslaught.

Izzy righted the bottle, taking a long sip before returning the cap. "Good morning to you too," she said shortly, peering down at him.

"Why'd you have to go and do that!" he exclaimed, grabbing a rumpled T-shirt to wipe his face dry. "I was having a bloody fantastic dream!"

"Oh, I'm well aware of that," Izzy replied easily, a superior smirk gracing her features. "You sounded in need of a cold shower, so one was provided. Happy to be of service. Just don't ask for turndown service, or I will remove all your fingernails."

Irish blinked heavily and shook his head, sending water droplets flying. He pulled himself into the sitting position, and already familiar shit-eating grin covering his face. "You know," he said, waving a finger in her general direction, "if you're tryin' to keep up this charade that you're not stalkin' me you're doin' a right piss-poor job of it."

Izzy quirked an eyebrow and leaned in closer. "You're right," she said, her voice adopting a seductive tone that made him blink. "There's nothing that gets me more hot and bothered....than finding a bloke drooling on the floor of the local community center. That's a sight to light my knickers aflame."

The goofy smile on his face faded quickly as her tone shifted from slow and syrupy to one dripping in sarcasm. His head spun about, as if he had only just realized where he was. "Ah, yes," he said, scratching at his head. "My mum and I had a wee bit of a disagreement about the current state of our living arrangement. All a misunderstandin', really. But I've temporarily relocated myself for the time bein'."

Izzy frowned, her contempt diluted with pity. As she was given to understand, that wasn't how families were supposed to operate. "Your mum kicked you out?" she demanded, her voice harsher than intended. "Without making sure you had somewhere else to go?"

"Nooooooooo," he drawled out in a patronizing tone. Izzy folded her arms across her chest and raised her eyebrows, making him falter. "Okay, yes," he admitted with a flourished wave of the hand. "But like I said, it was a misunderstandin'. In a few days it'll all be sorted and she'll go back to fixin' me dinner and washin' my pants."

Izzy let out a forceful snort, suddenly gaining more sympathy for Irish's mum than she thought she'd be able to muster. Hell, she might have done the same thing. Spinning on her heel, she turned to make an abrupt exit, but before she could take a step a hand darted forwards, encircling her wrist. The pressure on the bruised flesh made her wince, and Irish dropped her hand like it burned him.

"Don't tell the others about this, yeah?" he pleaded. "I've got a reputation to uphold an' all that shit."

"Really?" she demanded. "What sort of a reputation?" But he looked up at her with wide, plaintive eyes like he was a baby seal and she was the one holding the club. Biting down on her lip for a moment, Izzy let out a heavy sigh. "It's none of their fucking business," she replied with a shrug. "Hell, it's none of my business either. Your shit is your shit. Nobody's got to smell it but you. And hey, at least it's roomy. Good acoustics."

Irish cocked his head to the side, surveying her curiously. "I never did catch your name, love."

"Yeah, that's because I never gave it to you," Izzy smirked back.

He let out a groan and collapsed back on his makeshift bed. "Oh, come on, man," he whined. "I'm only tryin' to be friendly. You don't want me to keep callin' you Ginger, do ya?"

"Not particularly, but I'm less comfortable with you having any of my personal information."

"And what, your name is personal information?" He shoved himself up on his elbows and pointed to himself. "Alright, I'm Nathan. This is the part where you tell me your name."

She ground her teeth together for a moment before reluctantly letting the word out. "Izzy."

"Now that wasn't so difficult, was it?" he drawled. Finally getting to his feet, he stretched his arms over his head, displaying about 50% of his chest whilst letting out a theatrical yawn. He cracked an eye open and smirked widely at her. "See something you like?" he demanded, planting his hands on his hips in some bastardization of the superhero pose.

Izzy stared back at him evenly for a moment. "I am quite fond of those Superman sheets," she deadpanned, her eyes flicking down to the mess of sheets on the floor. "My nine-year-old brother has a set of those. Loves 'em."

"Well what can I say, love?" he declared, shooting her a wink. "I take the ladies to infinity and beyond."

"That's 'Toy Story', you over-sexed chia pet," she said in disbelief.

Irish—Nathan—blinked stupidly in response. "Is it?"

Her mouth hung open like a fly trap. It was far too early in the morning for her brain to be able to process this mountain of idiocy standing before her. "Go take a shower, you prick," she muttered, spinning on her heel and marching down the stairs. "You smell like shit."

"That's the pheromones, love!" he called after her. "You can only resist 'em so long!"

She shook her head, turning down the hall and heading for the rec room. "Un-fucking-believable."

Letting out a whispered prayer, Izzy checked her watch one more time. 7:48 a.m. Fuck. She was cursed to live an eternity within every minute she spent in this fucking community center. Shoving her earphones back in her ears, she turned into the rec room and marched straight for sofa beckoning to her. She flopped onto the scratchy, crumb-dusted pillows and extracted her book, leaning her head on the arm rest as she cracked it open. Her eyes slid over the words, reading but not absorbing. She felt herself sinking lower in to the pillows as the sleep that had eluded her all night caught up. Eyelids drooped, the book slid from her hands, falling on her chest, and sleep claimed her.

The dreams she had were of the usual sort, despite the less than typical experiences of the previous day. Oceans, sea breezes, the odd cackling seagull—that sort of shit. Quite nice, actually. Which, of course, meant it couldn't last very long. Next thing she knew, a bomb was going off next to her ear.

"WAKE UP!"

Izzy jolted into consciousness, flailing wildly and careening off the sofa. She landed hard on her ass, pain blooming at her tailbone and shooting up her spine. Her bag toppled over as well, spilling its contents. "Motherless son of a whore!" she exclaimed loudly. Her eyes flashed in anger as Irish—Nathan—leered over her, bent over at the waist and laughing so hard she was surprised he didn't cough up a lung.

"You should've seen your face!" he forced out through his guffaws of laughter. "Classic!"

"Was that really necessary?" she grumbled, hauling herself back to the sofa as she collected her things. She shoved them hastily into her bag, snatching her backup tampon out of his hand as it was apparently an object of great interest to him. He ignored her evident frustration and redirected his attention to her book, which had also fallen to the floor.

"'Crime and Punishment'?" he demanded, opening it up and flipping through the pages like he expected a comic book to fall out. Disappointed, he snapped it shut and tossed it at her with decidedly more force than necessary. "Why on earth are you readin' somethin' like that? I'm not bein' funny—why would you do that to yourself?"

"It's topical," she snapped back. "Didn't your mother teach you not to take other people's shit? Or did you miss that day of kindergarten?" She shoved the book away, and glowered at him. "Why did you wake me up?"

He straightened to full height and flashed her a toothy grin. "Time to repay our debt to society. You an' me Ginger—we're gettin' rehabilitated."

Izzy snorted bitterly before collapsing back on the sofa, sinking back into the pillows. "Well, fuck you too, then," she muttered bitterly.

Nathan just shrugged and spun on his heel, hands in pockets and whistling a jaunty tune. Christ, the bloke was practically a cartoon character. Grumbling to herself, Izzy grabbed her bag and trailed after him to the front of the community center via a route which, for some bizarre reason, involved climbing out a bloody window. By the time thy got to the front, the others were already there, Runner-boy, Twitchy and Chav all staring at the graffiti in disbelief while Diva texted away on her mobile, earphones in and generally dead to the world.

I'M GOING TO KILL YOU. No points for artistry, but at the very least it was a unique one. Izzy squinted at it, realizing the word 'kill' had been underlined three times. Alright, file that shit under 'vaguely worrisome'.

"This is a joke!" Runner-boy Curtis exclaimed. He rounded on the rest of them, jabbing his finger in each of their faces. "Did one of you do this?"

"Don' look at me coz I didn' do it," the chav snapped.

Curtis rounded on Izzy next and she shot him a withering look, slapping his hand away. "Why the fuck would one of us drop by the community center—after hours—and paint some bullshit threat on the wall? I think it's safe to say none of us gives enough shits to put in this degree of effort."

"I'll tell you who did it," Nathan interjected eagerly. "It was that Banksy prick. There's a hidden meaning."

Izzy rolled her eyes and readjusted the strap of the bag on her shoulder. "I think the meaning is pretty explicit. Seeing as someone has literally spelled it out for us."

"Nah," Nathan replied, reaching out and wrapping an arm around Twitchy. "It's like the monkey policeman with the banana and the Tesco's bag. Hidden meaning."

"Maybe someone wants to kill us," Twitchy said in a small voice, his eyes darting around frantically to the point that they almost rolled to the back of his head. Could he see through this skull? Survey says...more than likely. The chav—Kelly—seemed to be of her frame of mind, looking at him like he was completely mad.

"Uh, why would anybody want ta kill oz?" she demanded.

Izzy had half a mind to start prattling off the list she had begun to construct the previous morning, but before she got the chance the probation worker waltzed up to them. He seemed to be in a better state than the day before—the lanyard holding his badge remained untangled and he was no longer spasming uncontrollably. His mood however, had not made quite as complete a recovery. "Okay, come on you lot," he snapped. "Let's get changed."

"Have you seen this?" Curtis demanded, waving a hand at the wall. "Someone's taking the piss."

The probation worker let out a sigh and planted his hands on his hips, regarding the wall with an expression made up of equal parts frustration and vindication. "Yeah, it's terrible," he sneered. "All that anti-social behavior."

"Oh!" Nathan gasped theatrically. "Is he havin' a dig at us?"

The man seemed about to let that one comment slide, but suddenly Diva's phone rang. Again. Because apparently she was the sun at the center of her own personal, completely self-involved galaxy with any number of people orbiting around her. Which, though mildly irritating, Izzy didn't really give a shit about. Until it started affecting her personally, which would be starting now. The sound was like the opening bell at a boxing match. Immediately, the probation worker gave a sudden, violent twitch of anger and advanced on them. "Right! That's it!" he growled. "All of you—give me your phones. Nobody's making any more calls today! Now. Come on."

"Are you allowed to take our phones?" Diva smirked, snapping a photo of him.

His jaw twitching in anger, the probation worker snatched the phone out of her hand, turning to Runner-boy Curtis, hand outstretched. Reluctantly, he handed the phone over and the probation worker continued on down the line, collecting the phones with varying degrees of force. When he held his hand out to Izzy, she just stared back blankly causing him to seethe. "Phone. Now."

"Don't have one," she quipped back. "I was raised in one of those cults. Luddites, they called themselves. Don't believe in technology."

"I can see that," he said, angrily yanking the earphones from her ear.

"I've got some tin cans and string back at my flat, if you'd like me to get it," she continued, jerking her thumb over her shoulder. "I can chat with people the next building over with that thing. Reception is shit, but I do what I can."

"Give me the fucking phone."

Izzy sighed loudly, rolling her head back on her shoulders. She fished around in her bag until she found her blocky mobile that looked like it was from 1998 and tossed it at the probation worker. He caught it easily, sending her a contemptuous glare before moving on. The lot of them broke ranks, trudging towards the changing rooms. As then marched through the doors, she did a quick headcount. They were one less than the day before. Wannabe had skipped out. As far as she was concerned, he had the right idea.

Having quickly dressed herself, Izzy found herself lying back on one of the benches waiting for the others. They seemed to be wasting as much time as possible, as delinquents were generally expected to do. By the time they managed to get their shit together enough to leave the locker room, the probation worker appeared to have fucked off to some unknown location, leaving behind a pile of buckets and brushes next to a giant can of industrial strength cleaner.

Buckets and brushes. She should have known from the minute she passed that stupid graffiti that this was how she would be spending her day. The universe had a way of making her pay for other people's fuck ups. At least it was better than scraping up dog shit. Even if she did have to listen to Curtis and Diva—whose name was apparently Alisha—verbally shagging. Alisha was failing to contradict all of Izzy's first impressions—lounging with her top off and bikini-clad tits pointed at the sky, determinedly making bedroom eyes at Curtis over the rims of her sunglasses. And Curtis? He was proving himself to be a bloke, leering back at her with equal determination. And somehow she had ended up with a front row seat to all of it.

It was the literal invitation to stare at her tits that tipped the scales towards completely unbearable. Letting out a long, frustrated sigh, she jammed her headphones in her ears and cranked up the volume on her phone to drown it out. Yanking the marigolds down to her elbows, she dunked her brush in the sudsy water and began scrubbing at the wall with increased vigor. If you had told her a month ago that she'd find herself held hostage to other people's aggressive flirting, she would have laughed, but now she was slowly sinking into a depressive acceptance.

Izzy violently scrubbed the wall, a light mist of backspray hitting her in the face and making her cough. The paint was slowly being stripped, mixing with the soapy water and pooling on the floor in a puddle of red and dirt. It kind of looked like blood. Izzy shook her head, mentally berating herself for being so morbid when her thoughts were suddenly interrupted by Kelly.  

"Ya know, afta the storm," she announced to the group, "did any o' yous lot feel dead weird?"

Izzy felt her muscles clench, her sudden cessation of scrubbing broadcasting her discomfort to anyone in thirty meter radius. Luckily she was surrounded by people with the observational skills of a sponge with old food stuck to it. Except for the twitchy one, but he was being all stare-y and distant. And for that she was grateful, because her mind suddenly found itself back in that alleyway. But that was a one-off. That was just residual static electricity left in the air after that storm combined with irregular wind patterns or some other meteorological bullshit. Izzy kept her head down and continued with her work, but another quite unexpected voice chimed in.

"I did!" Nathan said in a loud voice, making Izzy pause yet again. "Yeah," he declared. "I had a strange tingling sensation in my anus."

Izzy let out a bitter snort and rolled her eyes. "I believe that's called hemorrhoids," she said, flicking some water at Nathan. "You should probably schedule yourself some sort of appointment."

"Did ya feel weird?" Kelly persisted, turning towards the creepy kid. He glanced back hesitantly, like he wanted to say something but wasn't sure if he should. His head gave a small shake with all the skittishness of a scared, wounded animal.

"You mean you don't want to hear about my anus?" Nathan demanded in a highly scandalized tone.

"I think that's something you should keep between yourself and a medical professional," Izzy shot back, cranking the volume on her iPod up even higher to block out the antics unfolding around her. Curtis and Alisha, Nathan dicking with the weird kid—antics to the right, to the left—it was fucking inescapable. They were a bunch of teenagers starting shit and she was the old man who calls in a noise complaint. Then they spray paint the old man's house, and the old man breaks out the shotgun.....Maybe this was hell.

All of the sudden a solid mass collided with her, knocking her off kilter. Her foot caught on the nearby bucket, making her fall hard on her arse for the second time in a single day. The suds slopped over the side, splashing all over her and soaking through her jumpsuit. "What the fuck, man?" she demanded. She jumped back up to her feet, glaring at the solid mass—who also went by Nathan—accusingly.

"Wha—don't look at me!" he whined petulantly, waving off at Kelly's back as she stalked off in the opposite direction. "She shoved me, man. Domino effect. I am just a young, handsome victim of youth violence that is completely uncalled for!"

"Well what the fuck did you say to her?" Izzy demanded.

"Ugh, why does everyone always 'assume' I 'said something'? he groaned, using air  
quotes.

Izzy stared back at him, her brow creased into a frown. "That's not how you use air quotes."

"I—" Nathan declared, pointing at his own chest "—I am a free citizen of the United Kingdom and I shall use air quotes any way I so choose."

Izzy's mouth hung open, waiting as her brain strove to find any words that might be comprehensible to both herself and the tower of human idiocy standing across from her. Alas, she came up short. "Whatever," she muttered, jabbing the brush in his direction. "You just stick to your panel and stay the fuck out of my personal space."

She shoved the earphones back in her ears and continued on with her work, but Nathan continued to stare at her in what she thought was indignation, but might have just been gas. "Women," he finally scoffed, slopping some more sudsy water onto the walls. "I am not equipped to deal with this much estrogen in such a concentrated area."

Naturally, Izzy felt obligated to flip him the middle finger. This was slightly hampered by the marigolds yanked down to her elbows, but she managed well enough. She was committed to the gesture.

Kelly never came back. Wannabe never showed. Alisha did fuck all. So in the end there were just four of them scrubbing at the walls, doing a shitty job of their work. That is until they realized the probation worker—Teddy or something—was doing an even shittier job of his, having fucked off to God knows where. And being the incompetent young offenders that they were, the rest of the group saw fit to fuck off as well. Alisha splintered off, migrating over to the locker room, presumably to find her phone or fix her hair. The blokes crowded around the foosball table in a pack while Izzy collected her book and flopped back on the possibly flea-infested couch, dangling her legs over the armrest and kicking them back and forth like a kid.

As Izzy turned the page of a finished chapter, Nathan's voice drifted over the clanking of the foosball game. "It's a shame more women don't commit crime—why do you think that is?" he mused absently. "We did get lucky, though."

"How's that?" Curtis asked, his voice distracted with most of his attention focused on the game. Izzy, on the other hand, had her curiosity piqued. She flipped down the cover of her book and peered at the gaggle of them. Nathan and Curtis were all invested in the game and Twitchy watched. That one always seemed to be watching.

"We've got three blokes and three girls," Nathan barreled on. "The maths work out perfectly. That's one for each of us, like Noah's Arc. Which is lucky for you, weird kid 'cause I don't see the situation workin' out that well otherwise. Plus I was hopin' to get in on some sort of group scenario. Not that either of you are invited."

Izzy let out a disgusted scoff and pushed herself up on her elbows to glower over at them. "You do realize that I'm right here?" she called out giving them a wave. "I've not gone invisible have I? Because I'm pretty sure I'm here, visible, and completely without the desire to have sex with any of you."

The clanking of the foosball stilled for a moment as the three of them stared at her. All of them. In unison. Like meerkats in a nature documentary. Nathan simply made a face and shrugged, yanking on the bar and spinning the little football dudes. "Anyways," he declared, breezing past her like she hadn't said anything at all, "three for three—who're you goin' for?"

"There used to be four of us," a small, timid voice said. Izzy blinked at the tone. Of course twitchy one's only contribution to the conversation would be vague, morbid, and creepy. But what made her more uncomfortable was that the guy had a point. What had happened to Wannabe?

"Ooh, that's too bad then," Nathan said, patting creepy kid on the shoulder with a pitying look. "I guess that means you'll be goin' without. I'm not bein' funny, but I think out of all of us, you're the one drawin' the short straw." With one particularly violent move, he made a shot only to have the ball hit the side of the table and project itself into the air, hit the table, and roll back into his own goal. "I mean come on, guys!" he declared loudly, smacking his hand against the table. "I'm talkin' about gettin' laid. So how're we gonna do this, man?"

Curtis stared back blankly and gave a shrug. "Do what?"

"Isn't it obvious?" Izzy called out from her seat. "How are you going to divide us up. Because you know all a girl looks for in a bloke is proximity."

"Exactly!" Nathan said, snapping his fingers and pointing at her. "You, runner-guy, you can have the one with the frizzy hair. I don't exactly see me and her gettin' it on."

Curtis let out a heavy snort. "'Cause she's beautiful?"

"No, because she'd be way too much effort," he said, waving a dismissive hand. "She looks seriously high maintenance. You'd have to treat her really well, but that one over there—"

"Izzy," the quiet one supplied.

"Again," she said, spreading her arms wide, "I'm sitting right here."

"Yeah, Izzy. She's pretty enough. She may be all sarcastic and hostile and shit an' her face kinda looks like someone's disapprovin' nan who just caught you wankin' off, but that probably just means she's good in the sack. It's the repressed one's that'll surprise you. Plus, you know what they say about redheads. All that fire." He blew a kiss in her direction, which she returned with a prominent display of her middle finger.

"Fuck. Off."

Nathan's face broke out in a wide grin. "See that behavior is borne out of sexual frustration, a problem I'd be plenty happy to help you out with."

"I would rather shave my head."

"Whatever," he said, waving her off. "If that one doesn't work out, there's always the other one. A couple of Bacardi Breezers and I'd reckon she's good to go. My mum always told me it's good to have more than one iron in the fire."

Rolling her eyes, Izzy clapped a hand on the back of the couch and shoved herself to her feet. "On that note, I'm gonna go get a drink."

As she marched out of the rec room, she could still hear Nathan prattling on. "I bet she's one of those feminists. You know, the ones that don't shave their legs—"

Izzy kicked the door open hard, letting it slam closed behind her with a loud crash. The hallways were completely empty, save for a few stray wheel chairs. She hopped in one of them, wheeling herself towards the vending machines near the back entrance. Rolling up to the the it, she stared yearningly through the glass. Why didn't vending machines dispense alcohol? That felt like a hideous oversight.

Shoving a pound fifty into the machine, she collected her drink and rolled off down the hallway. This way was better. Alone was better. It wasn't that she hated people per se. It was just that 90% of people were horrible, so there was a statistically high probability that getting to know any one of them in particular would end up being a giant waste of time. Plus the small talk was just so boring. You have a dog? Oh, well color me fascinated! I have a cat named Mr. Boots, and he's just like people! Honestly, who gives a flying fuck?

Half-empty drink sitting in her lap, Izzy rolled through the hallways of the community center. There was the odd chance that she'd run into the probation worker and he'd do something drastic like make her actually do community service, but she was willing to risk it. Pop a few wheelies, marinate in the boredom and general ineffectiveness of the correctional system. Good times. She manage to make one full tour of the community center before she happened upon the lot of them again.

The curious thing about people is that they always manage to find their way into packs. As if some magnetic force of twatitude managed to draw them together. Izzy typically avoided them at all costs. Which wasn't that difficult. Back in school she just existed on the periphery, and all the twats were so focused with their own groups they didn't notice the unaligned girl floating between them. At least they usually didn't. The interactions never ended that well when she was noticed. But this time there was just the one group, so her odds of not being noticed and going about her own day were pretty much fucked from moment one.

The others had congregated around the snack machines, remaining close to the food source. Alisha had reappeared, sprawling herself across one of the couches like a grecian statue—fully dressed this time—the twitchy kid was curled against the wall bearing a striking resemblance to a frightened hamster, and Curtis was sulking in a corner. Nathan, meanwhile, had managed to get his hands on a second wheelchair and looked pretty fucking smug about it. Izzy's face went slack as she noticed them and tried to propel herself down the next hallway, but before she got the chance, a voice called out at her.

Nathan spun the chair around to face her. "Ah, Ginger, welcome, welcome. Mr. Olympics over here was about to tell us how he ended up amongst the mere mortals."

"Don't call me that," Curtis spat.

"Aw, come on man," Nathan whined as Izzy reluctantly wheeled her way over. "We've got weeks of this shit—we're gonna find out sooner or later. Just tell us."

"I heard he was dealing crack," Alisha announced through a smug smile.

"What?" Curtis protested. "I wasn't dealing crack!"

"No, no, no," Nathan corrected. "The papers said it was steroids."

Alisha let out a low hiss. "That stuff'll shrivel your dick."

"It wasn't steroids!" Curtis insisted. "I'm not a cheat. That stuff in the papers was bullshit."

"So you're not a cheat and you're not a dealer," Izzy announced. She raised her drink to her lips and took a long slug, draining the can before continuing. "So what are you, then? Innocent? Wrongly accused? A Capricorn? What?"

With four sets of eyes fixed on him, Curtis shifted uncomfortably. He exhaled sharply, his head sagging on his shoulders, before he started. "I got caught with a little bit of coke, alright? I messed up one time."

"You mean you got caught one time," Izzy replied with raised eyebrows, earning herself a hostile glare. "What, I'm not judging—not much," she said, throwing her hands in the air. "I'm just saying the odds of that being the one and only time you did coke are pretty low. Am I wrong?"

"That's bullshit," Alisha drawled from her sofa. "Noone gets community service for possession."

Curtis let out a derisive sigh, and shrugged his shoulders. "If it was anyone else, they'd have got a caution. I get two hundred hours of community service and a two year band from athletics. They said that because of my profile they need to 'send a message'."

Nathan wheeled himself forwards, a grin on his face that was most likely seconds from getting smacked off it. "You let yourself down," he said in a mocking tone.

"Can you please shut up?" Izzy groaned, throwing her empty drink can at him. "Just because you have the ability to speak doesn't mean you should be using it constantly."

But, the twat that he was, he ignored her, and all evidence pointed towards this little exchange not ending well. The levels of anger and frustration behind Curtis's eyes were ticking upwards, not that she could blame him. Apparently there was no way to restrain the jackass commentary. "You let the kids down," Nathan continued with that sly smile. "You let your parents down!"

A small explosion went off. It was inevitable, really. The internal pressure builds to the point it can't be contained any more. "Shut the FUCK up!" Curtis shouted, advancing on Nathan. He grabbed the collar of the orange jumpsuit, jabbing an angry finger in the face that still, somehow, managed to retain its smug smile. "All I ever did was train! You know nothing! I shouldn't even fucking be here!"

"You can't hit someone in a wheelchair!" Nathan exclaimed, chortling lightly.

Curtis shoved him backwards, causing the wheelchair to roll backwards, wheels squeaking lamely, until it hit the wall behind. "I shouldn't even be here," he muttered. "It's not fucking fair."

At the word 'fair', Izzy couldn't repress the derisive snort. Curtis spun to face her, arms folded across his chest and eyebrows raised pointedly. "You got something to say?"

"Yeah, yeah I do," Izzy replied. She straightened herself in her wheelchair, a move that would have been slightly more dignified had she not started rolling backwards, and fixed him under her stare. "Life's not fucking fair. We learned that much in primary school. You fucked up. Sure, maybe you didn't fuck up as bad as the rest of us, but that doesn't change shit. So stop bitching about your situation, because it sure as hell isn't helping you. Or anybody, for that matter."

"Fuck you," he replied contemptuously. "You don't know anything about me."

Izzy made a face and shrugged, unfazed by his hostility. "You're right, I don't. But ultimately none of that shit matters. Something happened. It sucks. You're not the only one in that fucking boat, so why don't you stop drilling holes in it and start paddling instead."

He blinked and turned away from her. "Whatever," he spat, slamming his hand against the wall.

A bit of an awkward silence filled the room. Izzy gnawed on her lip and began drumming her fingers against the armrests of her wheelchair. She has probably overstepped with the life advice, but it wasn't like she was wrong. The guy was a parade of self-pity. Pride goeth before the fall and all that crap, and apparently a shitload of whining followed said fall. Eventually it was up to Alisha to break the ice. "You want to know what I got done for?" she asked, her eyes flicking around the room for an audience.

Nathan blew out a long breath and jerked his head to the side noncommittally. "Not really."

And as it turned out, the fucker was right. She did not want to know. What followed was something Izzy didn't really care to remember. The gist of it was that the girl got caught driving over the limit—simple enough in itself—but for some reason Alisha saw fit to throw in some very graphic demonstrations involving her mouth and a soda bottle. Cue drooling males......

Finally she withdrew the bottle from her mouth and gave a flirtatious smile. "Now I don't know if this cop is gay of what, but he tells me I'm four times over the limit! It's bullshit."

"Maybe he didn't take kindly to his breathalyzer being molested," Izzy deadpanned.

Alisha narrowed her eyes at Izzy, clearly none too pleased with the snarky commentary or the diversion of attention from herself. "What about you, then?" she demanded icily, nodding in Izzy's direction. "What did you get done for? We've heard from everyone else—what's your deal?"

Izzy shrugged and sat back in her seat. "I nicked some pills from a pharmacy."

The admission was met with dead silence and the general appearance of shock on each of their faces. Hell, the twitchy kid's eyes went so big she was surprised they didn't pop out of his skull, dangling towards the floor from the optic nerve. Nathan's face was the first to lose that slackened look. "Damn," he said, nodding slowly. "That's impressive, man. High five." Izzy ignored the hand being waved in her face, but he was a persistent little bastard. "So what did you take?" he pressed. "Oxy? Vicodin? Ooh, no. I bet it was one of them studyin' pills that make you test well an' shit. You strike me as one of those over achiever types."

"It was called Fycompa," Izzy muttered.

There was another short pause before Alisha finally piped up. "What the fuck is that? Some kind of psychotropic shit?"

Izzy sighed and fiddled with the chain around her neck. In for a penny, in for a pound. Now she was stuck telling these gits her life story. They would manage to wrench it out of her at some point over the next few weeks—might as well rip the stitches now.

"Fycompa is an anti-seizure medication," she explained. "My brother has epilepsy and he felt an attack coming on. He was out of his meds, so we went to pick them up...." She sighed and scratched at the back of her neck uncomfortably. "Turns out his guardians forgot to renew the prescription. Things get bad when he's like that so I nicked them and ran. It wasn't like it was hard for them to find me—they had my name on file."

Curtis let out a low whistle. "Jesus. That's—that's—"

"Yeah, I know what it is," Izzy interrupted. "The worst of it is that the bastards are trying to file a restraining order against me, saying that I'm a 'bad influence' or some bullshit—"

"That's a load of wank," Alisha said, smacking the gum she was chewing. "How can they file a restraining order to keep you away from your brother?"

Izzy sighed and ran her hands down her face in frustration. She had managed to avoid this conversation for all of a day and a half. Top marks. 

"Well...." she muttered, "the thing of it is that we're not actually related. Allan's my foster brother. I used to be able to look after him, but I aged out of the foster system a few years back. The family he's with—they're not ideal. I've threatened to report them to child services a few times, so they were looking for a way to screw me over. And now here I am."

Great. Fan-fucking-tastic. She had just managed to share her life story with cabal of young fuck ups. The lot of them were staring at her with differing degrees of pity and apathy. The apathy she was fine with, but fuck the pity. When life kicks you in the balls, you get up and keep playing. Maybe buy a cup, though. It really was just that simple.

"So now we've finished with the 'sharing circle' portion of this team building exercise," she drawled. "What's next? Trust falls? Do we hold hands and sing kumbaya? Do we start putting names in a hat for Secret fucking Santa?"

If anybody was planning on answering the question, they didn't have the opportunity to. A loud crash echoed through the entryway and the doors flew open, allowing Kelly to collapse through. She looked up at them, makeup smudged, eyes wide with fear, and breaths coming out in panicked pants.

"'E's goin' ta kill os!"

Izzy blinked in shock and stared at the mess of a girl who lay at her feet.

What the actual fuck?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> SOUNDTRACK  
> 1) Waking up and getting ready for community center, dealing with the events of the previous day.  
> -~-~-~-I'm Alone - Bushwalla
> 
> 2) Finding Nathan and inappropriate conversations.  
> -~-~-~-Summer Cutting Kale - The Pica Beats
> 
> 3) Washing away creepy murderous messages.  
> -~-~-~-Once Upon A Time - Chinese Man
> 
> 4) Foosball and misogyny.  
> -~-~-~-Reactor Party - Shitdisco
> 
> 5) Kelly makes a dramatic entrance.  
> -~-~-~-No Hassle Night - The Dead Weather


	3. Kill Or Be Killed

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A quick succession of near death experiences.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Disclaimer: I don't own Misfits. Any similarity in content or dialogue originated with the show.

Chapter 3 - Kill Or Be Killed

Izzy McCallum was not good with people. In a general sense, human interaction was not a field in which she was particularly skilled. This was a character flaw of which she was well aware. Boxes that could be checked off included insensitivity, sarcasm to the point of appearing condescending, an extreme dislike of being contradicted, generally being an arse…..The list was far too long to explore in its entirety. Suffice to say she was once employed at the Gap, a tenure in retail which lasted all of a week and ended quite abruptly with ‘excessive rudeness’ as the cited reason for termination.

The fact of the matter was that Izzy was rubbish at reacting to people, nor was she inclined to improve upon that ability. In normal conversation, she was absolute shit. Which was fine, seeing as she didn’t often care for conversation. But it also left her particularly ill-equipped to deal with whatever the fuck was unfolding in front of her at the moment. What was it that she managed to come up with? The words ‘Jesus Christ’ slipping out under her breath. Eloquent in its brevity.

Kelly collapsed on the floor before them, black, mascara-laden tears running down her face, giving her the appearance of a sad French mime. Izzy stared at the girl with alarm, wondering if she should help her up, but before she had the opportunity the girl had already scrambled to her feet. Kelly ran to the door, frantically making sure it was both closed and locked as if something on the outside was trying to get in. Under different circumstances Izzy would have thought that the girl was in the throes of a deep acid trip, but only a complete fucking moron would do something that profoundly idiotic while in the middle of community service. Then again, maybe Kelly was a complete fucking moron.

Nathan cackled from his wheelchair, beginning a theatrical slow clap. “Nice entrance,” he ridiculed. “Very dramatic.”

Izzy rolled her eyes and prepared a snide comment to be lobbed in his direction, but Kelly’s voice came first. “The probation worker’s gone mental!” she shouted out through panting breaths. “‘E’s just attacked me!” Her eyes darted between the lot of them, panicked but certain. "Somefin' really weird is 'appenin'. I'm hearin' these voices in me 'ead. It's like—it's like I can 'ear wot people are finkin’!"

The muscles in Izzy’s body went rigid, jaw clenched and hands tightly gripping the arms of the wheelchair. Her eyes flicked up and down Kelly’s form, taking in the girl’s appearance. The hair, oh so carefully scraped back this morning, had fallen out of its ponytail and her face shone with sweat that was probably more panic-induced than from any physical exertion. Izzy was no stranger to the smell of genuine fear, and it rolled off this girl in waves. And that expression—the combination of wonder, confusion, incomprehension, alarm—she was fairly certain it matched the one she had worn in the alleyway last night. Coincidences were never nearly this convenient.

“Aw, have you been sniffing glue?” Alisha mocked, her voice thick with derision.

For the first time, Kelly ignored the insult thrown at her and barreled on. “The storm, the lightening—I don’ know, it’s just done somfin’ to os!”

“Okay,” Nathan said, wheeling towards her, “If you can here our thoughts, what am I thinkin’ right now? Hm?”

Kelly took a moment to observe him. “You fink it’s bullshit!” she shouted back in agitation.

“Of course I think it’s bullshit!” he returned through a snort of laughter. “You don’t have to be a mind reader to know that!”

Kelly looked Nathan up and down, narrowing her eyes at him. “Why are you in a wheelchair?” she demanded.

Nathan’s features assembled themselves into a sad, innocent-looking expression. Like a puppy staring at you through the window of a pet shop. “It was the storm!” he croaked. “The tingling sensation in my anus spread and now I can’t feel my—”

“He’s in the wheelchair because he’s a twat,” Izzy interjected.

Nathan let out a loud scoff and waved in her direction. “Oi, you’re in one as well, Ginger,” he snapped. “That’s a double standard, that is.”

“I’m also not treating this situation like it’s a program on the telly,” she sniped back. “Grow the fuck up.”

Curtis stepped between the two of them, holding his hand in the air as if he was calling a time out. “Wait a second,” he said, shaking his head in confusion, “what do you mean the probation worker attacked you?”

“This does sound like complete shit,” Alisha added with a roll of her eyes, kicking her legs out and leaning back and draping herself on the sofa.

Kelly was growing more and more distressed with each passing second. She paced back and forth, her movements jittery and uncoordinated. “I’m tellin’ you the troof!” she exclaimed, looking between all of them, her eyes desperately seeking out some form of support. “‘E’s out there an’ ‘e chased me!”

Taking a deep breath, Izzy rolled her wheelchair, placing herself closer to the center of the group. “Why would she make up something like this?” she asked, glancing around the room. “What could she possibly gain from this shit? And the probation worker’s definitely got some anger management issues.”

“Yeah, he was a dick,” Alisha spat, still lounging on the dust mite-covered couch like it was a beach on the Amalfi coast. “Big fucking surprise there. But she says she can hear people’s thoughts? Because of some fucking lightening? That’s bullshit.”

Izzy took a breath and stood, shoving her wheelchair backwards behind her. “She’s not the only one affected by the lightening.”

Everybody’s eyes snapped to her. Alisha and Curtis’s held a scornful skepticism. The weird kid’s called to mind the picture of a curious and cowering cartoon mouse. Kelly’s were relieved and maybe even a bit grateful. And Nathan? Psychopathic glee was probably the best way of putting it. “Seriously?” the curly-haired twig man demanded through poorly concealed laughter. “This keeps getting better and better. I’ve got two crazies in one group! Tell me—” he pointed back and forth between the two of them “—tell me, have your periods synced up as well?”

Gritting her teeth, Izzy planted her foot on the base of his wheelchair and pushed hard, sending him flying backwards into a wall. The sound of the crash wasn’t nearly as satisfying as she hoped it would be, seeing as it was paired with his infuriating cackle. "I'm serious," she said in a steady voice, trying her best to conceal the anxiety slowly building within her. "I was on my way home yesterday and a couple of pricks attacked me." She pushed up the sleeves of her jumpsuit to show them her wrists, the purple that ringed them now tinged with a mottled green. "They slammed my head into the wall and were starting to drag me off when there was this sort of explosion, only it came from me. It threw them against a wall. I got away. Here we are now.”

“This is fucking brilliant!” Nathan exclaimed, rolling his wheelchair back towards the group. “You guys should pair up and fight crime! That would make for some top notch programming!”

“Something’s happened to me too,” a small voice said from the corner. Izzy turned to see the pale bloke glancing at the lot of them. She had almost forgot about him again with the way he pressed himself into the corner, making himself as small as possible.

“Ah, did you pop your cherry?” Nathan asked in a sarcastic tone. “We’re all very happy for you, mate!”

“Are you genetically incapable of shutting the fuck up?” Izzy seethed. She looked at Twitchy and waved her hand, gesturing for him to continue. “Come on, man,” she prompted. “It’s not like you’re going to look any more mad than the rest of us.”

“Is he on his period as well?!” Nathan chirped. “You know, these things always happen in threes.” 

This proclamation was immediately followed by an undignified yelp as Kelly proceeded to smack Nathan over the head. “Go on, then,” Kelly said, nodding at Twitchy. “Wot ‘appened to you?”

When he finally spoke his words were quiet, almost to the point of being inaudible. “When we were in the locker room,” he continued hesitantly, “I turned invisible. I turned invisible.”

Izzy had thought she was past the point of being surprised, but this fucker had thrown her for yet another loop. She was standing in the middle of a fucking madhouse. Though technically speaking his story was no more ridiculous than her own. Technically.

“Just so I get this right,” Curtis said in a voice colored by disbelief, “she’s psychic, she can make some bullshit forcefield thing, and you can turn invisible? That seems likely.”

“Yeah,” Nathan added, pointing his chair in Twitchy’s direction. “Did anybody witness this miraculous disappearance?”

“You were all there,” Twitchy replied, looking around hopefully, trying to find someone to corroborate his story. “I was standing right there. You couldn’t see me.”

“Alright,” Nathan said, advancing on Twitchy. “Go on. Do it. Turn invisible.”

Put on the spot, Twitchy looked up and squeezed his eyes shut, like he was focusing intensely on something. The muscles in his neck strained as he clenched up. Izzy’s nose wrinkled at the sight, but it was that weak, groaning noise he let out that did her in. “For fuck’s sake,” she muttered under her breath, ducking her head down and pinching the bridge of her nose in frustration. There was no miraculous display. Just the appearance of severe constipation. One purchase of Metamucil and everything’s coming up roses.

“Oh my God!” Nathan exclaimed in a shocked tone. “He’s disappeared!”

Izzy let out a long sigh, watching Nathan go through his little charade. It might have been entertaining under less serious circumstances, but for a bloke like him she was fairly certain life and death didn’t fall under the purview of ‘serious’. Nathan ended the gag by tossing an empty soda can at Twitchy’s head and a making a loud proclamation. “You’re invisible!”

“Jesus fucking Christ!” Izzy snapped loudly. “Would you get a grip? This is not some goddamn joke—do you have an off switch I can make use of?”

“‘Fraid not love,” he smirked. “I go all night long.” He wheeled to survey the group, that smug look still stamped on his face. Izzy felt her fingers twitch as she fought the impulse to smack it straight off. “You three are hilarious, really,” he said, wheeling towards the door. “Keep taking that medication.”

Kelly darted out in front of him and grabbed the armrests of the chair, forcing him to halt. "Don't go out there, 'e will kill you!”

“Of course he will!” Nathan mocked. “Because he’s such a badass!”

“What’s the possible upside of going out there?” Izzy asked, repositioning herself between the rest of the group and the door. “Hell, I don’t know if this is a wind-up or not. But I’d rather not die on the chance that it isn’t.”

Nathan rolled his eyes, his jaw flapping open to make even more unnecessary commentary, but he was quickly cut off by an unexpected voice. “They’re tellin’ the truth!”

Izzy looked past Nathan to see Curtis standing there, the expression on his face implying that he had just seen the face of God. One moment the bloke was having a grand old time with the air of general mockery, and now? Clammy skin, shaking hands, long, heavy breaths. It was how she used to look after the panic attacks she had when she was younger.

“What’s this now?” Nathan said, spinning around in his chair to face him. "Is crazy contagious? So the probation worker's going to kill us. And you know this how? I suppose you're psychic now too.”

Curtis glanced at the lot of him, terror bubbling at the surface. He opened his mouth and snapped it shut again, reluctant to join the ranks of the psychotic. “All this,” he said, waving a hand around the room. “It’s already happened once. I opened the door.” He turned towards Izzy, his jaw twitching. “The probation worker attacked you. He had this—this metal pole thing. He swung it, but it didn’t hit you. Like there was something in the way. Something blocking it. And you—” he turned to Kelly “—he killed you. You were right there. You were dead. Everything froze. You were all just standing there. Time went backwards.”

“What are you sayin’, that you turned back time?” Alisha scoffed.

“This just keeps gettin’ better by the second!” Nathan said, finally abandoning the wheelchair and stomping towards the door.

“Everything happened again!” Curtis continued, his eyes tracking Nathan. “It was exactly the same! Man, I’m telling you don’t open that door!”

Nathan ignored him. “Excuse me, love,” he said, roughly shoving Izzy to the side and into a brick wall. He had the stupidest expression on his face. Ironically enough it was one that would belong to a small child caught stealing some pick n’ mix. Izzy was about to shout at him, but before he had the chance that pleased smile crumpled into wide-eyed fear. A strangled yelp escaped his lips and he quickly slammed the door shut, locking it with fumbling hands. He spun around, bearing a striking resemblance to a spooked chipmunk.

“He’s right!” he cried in a panicked squeak, pressing himself against the door. “The probation worker’s gone mental!”

For a moment the room filled with complete silence. Funny how crushing realizations always come with that one moment of quiet before the shitstorm starts. Suddenly a loud crash broke through the calm, the doors to the community center rattling violently as a figure hurled itself against it. Nathan let out another undignified shriek and grabbed Izzy’s hand, yanking her after him, away from the door and towards the rest of the group.

The shadowed figure of the probation worker was framed in the frosted windows of the doors, bulky and menacing. He hurled himself against the doors again and again. The doors rattled and the hinges creaked, threatening to give way and let him inside. The lot of them drew together, huddling together in the face of the threat.

“M—maybe he’s on crystal meth,” Alisha stammered, that disdain suddenly fleeing from her voice.

“Right,” Izzy muttered bitterly. “Because that’s what probation workers do in their spare time. It’s a fun hobby. Knitting with a side of crystal meth.”

“No,” Alisha barreled on, shaking her head frantically. “That stuff makes you crazy. My friend Chloe did it and she nearly shagged her brother. And he’s really ugly.”

“The graffiti,” Twitchy whispered, almost as if he was actively trying to make the situation more dramatic than it already was. “On the wall. I’m going to kill you—he wrote it.”

“What did I say!” Nathan shouted. “I said there was a hidden meaning…..or not.”

Izzy couldn’t move. A cold terror seeped into the marrow of her bones. Terrifying experiences had dotted her life like scars, but this one left the others in the dust. Imminent death sounded like one pissed off probation worker and a bunch of chattering delinquents. The sounds began to merge together in her head. A muted cacophony of white noise and panic. She wanted to clap her hands over her ears and curl up in a ball, but there was a strong chance she couldn’t even make herself do that much. Her breaths were coming faster and faster and her lungs shuddered. The tips of her fingers began to tingle and her lips became numb. No. Oh, no. She could not have a panic attack—not now. It had been years since the last one. This shit could not happen again.

A sharp pain in her right hand brought her back to herself. Glancing down, she saw Nathan’s hand still clutching her own, crushing it in his grasp and cutting off the circulation to her fingers. “Get the fuck off,” she muttered, wrenching it away and massaging it to stop the pain. In the corner of her mind she was partially aware of someone saying they should call the police. A bunch of fucking geniuses the lot of them were, being attacked and only just now thinking of calling the cops.

“He took our phones,” Twitchy said, destroying the tiny bubble of how that had formed in her chest. “He took all of our phones.”

“There’s got to be a landline somewhere,” she said, shaking herself out of her stupor. “People still have those—community centers have those. Right? I mean they still exist. Does anybody know where they might be keeping one?”

She was met with a chorus of silence and fearful looks. Great. They were fucked. Absolutely and irrevocably fucked. They were fucked six ways from Sunday. The banging against the doors was beginning to feel like her heartbeat, the groaning of the hinges her shuddering lungs. Harsh, loud, violent. Until suddenly it wasn’t there anymore. “It’s stopped,” somebody said in a weak voice.

A dead silence filled the room. Izzy found herself even more terrified than she had been the moment before. A moment ago she had known exactly where the psychotic killer was. Now he could be anywhere. He could be in the air vents. In the movies they always went in her air vents. Hey eyes slowly traveled upwards, her eyes fixing on the mildewed cork board ceiling. “This is the part in the horror film when everybody let’s down their guard right before they die,” she muttered under her breath.

“Oh, that’s very helpful,” Nathan spat, turning to glare at her. “Way to put us all at ease here!”

“You dickhead!” Alisha screeched, rounding on Kelly. “Why’d ya come back here? You should have gone for help!”

“Uh, wot do you know, bitch?” Kelly sneered, standing over her.

Alisha rolled her eyes and folded her arms across her chest. Pouting. She was pouting. “Ugh, shut, you chav.”

“Ya know if ya call me chav one more time,” she retorted, jabbing an angry finger in Alisha’s face, “I’ll kick ya so ‘ard in the cunt, your mum’ll feel it.” 

Izzy repressed an inappropriately timed snort of laughter as Alisha shrank back in fear. Nathan, on the other hand, didn’t seem to have quite the same grasp on the seriousness of events. He cocked his head to the side and peered at her curiously. “Her mum’ll feel it?” he added to the ridiculous exchange, fulfilling his apparent need to hear the sound of his own voice at least once every five minutes. “How does that work, exactly?”

“I think it’s a metaphor,” Izzy muttered absently.

“‘E tried ta kill me!” Kelly shouted, glaring at each of them. “I came back to warn yous lot and I coulda left ya! I’m sick o’ every single one of ya judgin’ me so jost fuck off!”

“We’re all very grateful for you coming back,” Izzy broke in, trying to but an end to the stupidity. Her voice had adopted the same tone she used when calming down her little brother, because apparently these idiots needed a fucking nanny. And Mary sodding Poppins wasn’t available at the moment, so she’d have to get her shit together and make do. “Now,” she continued, her words clipped. “Now, can we stop this shit and sort out our fucking priorities? There is a fucking madman. With a weapon. Who is trying to kill us.” She slowly ticked off her fingers as she presented her points, making meaningful eye contact with each of them. “Maybe we should stop bickering and get the fuck out of here before we all die gruesome, painful deaths? Hm? Does this sound appealing to anyone?”

“Yeah,” Nathan said, nodding in agreement. “Yeah, out the back way. Come on.”

A pang of something slightly resembling gratitude shot through Izzy and she inclined her head in Nathan’s direction. She wasn’t certain if it went noticed or not, but he jerked his head indicating down the hall. The lot of them took off, somewhere between sprinting and scampering, shoes sliding and squeaking against overly waxed floors. As someone not given to intense bouts of exercise, running for her life was offensive on two fronts—the imminent threat of death as well as cardio. This situation sucked on multiple levels.

They moved as a group, careening forwards and knocking into each other as they ran. Izzy couldn’t help looking over her shoulder as she rounded the corner into the locker room. Nathan followed right behind her. They stumbled as they took the corner, trying to keep themselves straight. Suddenly, Izzy hit a patch of liquid that sent her skidding forwards like she had just hit a goddamn banana peel in a game of Mario Kart. Somehow she managed to retain her balance, but Nathan wasn’t quite so lucky. A screech escaped his lips before he collapsed in a puddle of something that was definitely not water. It could have been some disastrous incident involving a shitload of ketchup, but given the day they were having that seemed unlikely.

“Is that blood?” Kelly demanded anxiously.

Nathan hauled himself up to his feet, slipping a few times in the process, like this was the most morbid episode of ‘Benny Hill’ ever produced. His hands were covered in liquid, dark red and sticky. For once he seemed to be without words. But he found them quickly enough. 

“Aw, fuck! Jesus Christ!” He started wiping the blood on his jumpsuit, like it was acid burning his skin. “Fucking get it off me!”

Izzy found herself in a sort of trance. She stared at the floor, the swirling mess of red and congealed dirt. She had seen that much blood before—only once before. But it had been enough times for her to know what that much blood meant. Someone was dead. Her eyes followed the lines backwards, tracking the journey. The droplets rolled upwards from the floor, up the dulled metal surface, until they disappeared into the vents. It took a few blinks for her to see past the blood. The locker stood before her, liquid slowly seeping from the vents near the top. “The locker is bleeding,” she whispered.

“Oi, are you a’right?” a far-away voice demanded. “Are ya ‘avin’ a fit or somefin’?”

Izzy’s jaw twitched and she turned from the locker, blinking the fog out of her eyes. “No,” she said, facing Kelly, “no, I’m fine.”

Kelly just raised her eyebrows, her eyes sliding down to Izzy’s right hand. Following her gaze, Izzy saw that is was shaking. Quickly, she balled it up into a fist, forcing the tremor to quiet itself. “I’m fine,” she repeated, her tone firmer. “I’m good.”

If Izzy was being honest, she’d have a more difficult time convincing herself than Kelly. Her eyes swept over the rest of the group. All of their eyes had converged on the locker. Taking small steps towards it, Izzy pulled the sleeve of her jumpsuit over her fingers. Reaching forwards, she took hold of the latch, the haunting notes of ‘Pop Goes The Weasel’ filling her head. Was she humming the tune as well? She couldn’t tell. Inhaling deeply, she wrenched the locker door open and scrambled back. As the body fell forward, she was the only one who didn’t scream. She was the only one who was already certain of what they would find.

“And pop goes the weasel,” she whispered.

The face leering at them from the locker was a familiar one. Crumpled wrapping paper that once covered a Christmas gift. Recognizable, but utterly ruined. Wannabe. A wave of nausea hit her stomach as she realized she hadn’t bothered to learn his name. And now he was dead. She’d have to learn it now. No way the cops weren’t going to be interviewing them.

His cap was missing.

“I did wonder what had happened to him,” Nathan mumbled, his voice uncharacteristically meek. Izzy glanced over at him. His face was caught in a terrified grimace, the blood on his hands long forgotten.

“He’s going to kill us,” Alisha said weakly. Everything about her trembled—her body, her voice. Tears were threatening to spill from her eyes.

“Turn back time,” Nathan demanded, waving a hand at Curtis. “Stop this from happenin’!”

“I—I don’t know how it works!” Curtis protested.

“Oh, that’s great!” Nathan shot back. “Very useful!”

“Look,” Izzy said, finally forcing her mind back to conscious thought. “Let’s not panic.”

“Easier said than done, love!” Nathan spat back, his voice dripping with sarcasm.

Izzy’s eyes fell closed and she drove her hands into her hair, pulling at it. That stinging pain helped to focus her—to keep her in the present. No wandering mind, no hazy half-thoughts—she had to think. She needed a plan to fix this. But her brain was failing her. It was blank. There was fucking nothing there, just a brick wall that her mind kept masochistically running into over and over again. There were too many factors that they didn’t know, that couldn’t be accounted for. Force fields. Telepathy. Time travel. Invisibility. Murder. What the fuck was she supposed to do with that? She could sort it all out given some time, but now? Her eyes darted back and forth under her eyelids like she was reading a book. A book written in some obscure language she couldn’t make any fucking sense of. She must look like a complete mental case. Fuck it, on some level she was already a complete mental case. And now she was panicking. Again.

Her reverie was broken by another strangled screech. Whirling around, Izzy found herself staring at Curtis and Alisha. He had grabbed hold of her arm, and from the way the tendons of his arms were straining against his skin the grip had to be tight. His eyes had an odd look to them—intense and yet blank at the same time, as if he was in some sort of trance. Seeing him like that, foggy and out of control, forced her screw her head on right.

“I’ve got to have sex with you right now!” he exclaimed as Alisha struggled against him.

“Jesus, man,” Izzy said, her nose wrinkling. “Prioritize your shit.”

Curtis grabbed Alisha’s other arm, pulling her close towards him. “You’re so beautiful! Let’s go! Let’s do it right now, raw!”

“Get off me, you freak!” she shouted, shoving him away.

Curtis stumbled backwards, the look of all-consuming lust fading. He took in the round of shocked and disgusted expressions with wide-eyed confusion. “What?” he demanded.

Alisha, her face contorted in anger, swung at Curtis. Open palm. Bitch slap. That was fair. But before Izzy got to hear the satisfyingly loud smack of an open palm hitting someone’s cheek, Curtis snatched Alisha’s hand out of the air. And the same shit started all over again. “You’re so hot!” he groaned, reaching down to unzip his trousers. “I’m gonna bone you! I’m gonna shag you senseless!”

Alisha shoved him off her a second time and that same baffled expression took up residence on his face. Izzy let out a weak cough and tugged at her hair. “Well you get an A for enthusiasm,” she deadpanned. “All the rest was pretty shit. Romance requires some buildup. Read a fucking Jane Austen novel for reference.”

“What is she talkin’ about?” Curtis demanded, glancing between the lot of them. “What did I do?”

“Uh, ya said you was gonna shag ‘er,” Kelly said bluntly.

“And you were gettin’ your chap out!” Nathan added, gesturing at Curtis’s nether region.

Izzy scratched at the back of her neck awkwardly. “You were quite rapey, actually.”

Curtis’s eyes went straight to his trousers, finding his fly gaping open. Izzy could have gone without the knowledge that he preferred boxers to briefs. Yet here she was, being stalked by a murderer, teetering on the verge of a full on panic attack, and now with an uncomfortable amount of knowledge about a pro athlete’s pants. Banner day in the McCallum household, party of one. “Shut up,” Curtis muttered self-consciously, moving to zip up his trousers.

“It was when you were touching her,” Twitchy observed in that quiet, creepy tone of his.

All eyes then migrated to Alisha, making her physically twitch. She stared down at there hands, holding them out, away from her body as if they didn’t belong to her. As if some foreign entity had latched itself to them. Her hands shook, but her jaw tensed with resolve. Suddenly she moved forwards, pressing her fingers against Twitchy’s neck. This time Izzy had a decent look at his face. The pupils dilated to the point they almost overtook his eyes in their entirety, the blood vessels throbbed against the surface of his unsettlingly translucent skin. “I’m so hard for you!” Twitchy declared in a tone that almost sounded angry. “I want to rip off your clothes and piss on your tits!”

Izzy stared on in slack-jawed horror. “How is that remotely sexually appealing?”

Alisha backed away, holding her hands out, away from her. “What is happening to me?!”

Izzy exhaled sharply and took a few steps away from the monument to sexual deviancy she found herself standing next to. The boy needed some serious therapy. Or a lobotomy. Or possibly castration. “You sick bastard,” Nathan murmured, somewhere between disgusted and impressed.

The aura of general revulsion festered around them for a moment, but soon shattered. Along with the wall of glass behind them. The probation worker hurled himself through the panel, sending shards flying towards them. He collapsed on the broken glass, grunting like some sort of deranged, blood-thirsty animal, but gave no indication of pain. When he raised his head from the ground, her eyes met his and it was as if time froze. They were like nothing from this world. The whites of his eyes were veined and bloodshot, the pupils had shrunk down to pinpricks. And they were looking at her. Rage, hate, and the desire to kill all in one pair of eyes.

Finally managing to make her feet work, Izzy stumbled backwards. Her trainers skidded against the glass underfoot and she fell backwards, those tiny pieces cutting into her palms. The probation worker managed to grab hold of her foot, pulling her towards him. For some reason that scene from Jaws popped into her head—the one where the shark tips the boat and Quint slides straight into its gaping teeth. She was being reeled in, dragged towards an untimely death. The scream that erupted from her mouth sounded far away, like it didn’t belong to her. She tried to push herself backwards, hands stinging as the glass grated them, until suddenly they weren’t touching the ground anymore. Someone had looped their arms under hers, hauling her back. She kicked her legs frantically, but the probation worker’s hands closed around her ankle like a vise grip.

“GET OFF!”

She coughed the words out with such force she thought she might lose her lungs along with them. Suddenly that pressure began to build under her skin again, the hairs on her arms rising as the air around her crackled with electricity. Her insides felt like a rubber band being pulled far, far too tight. And then it snapped. An unseen force threw the probation worker away from her, leaving Izzy to be pulled back by whoever had their hands under her arms. She looked up to see Nathan scuttling backwards, dragging her away to the corner of the room. He had tried to save her. Well, chalk that one up as an unexpected development.

The probation worker was standing again, careening forwards. Kelly barreled into Izzy’s sight, can of paint in hand and unleashing a warrior cry. She swung the can and it connected with the probation worker’s head, giving rise to a sickening crack. He crumpled to the ground, his body suddenly limp and useless. 

Izzy scrambled to her feet and backed away until she was standing next to Nathan, as if being further away from the body would somehow dissociate her from what had just happened. The scene before her was laid out like a supremely fucked up Norman Rockwell painting. Glass littering the floor like a mosaic, body splayed out on the ground, dented paint cal a little ways off, drops of red dotting the floor. Paint or blood. She probably couldn’t tell the difference at this point.

“What did you do?” Nathan whispered.

Kelly opened her mouth, but for once didn’t have a thing to say. Her eyes glazed over as she gazed down at him.

“Is—is he dead?” Alisha asked tentatively.

“Well, I’m no doctor,” Nathan responded, his voice cracking under strain, “but you see the way the back of his head is caved in like that?”

The back of the probation worker’s head had crumpled inwards, like someone had kicked in the side of a cardboard box. Izzy leaned forwards, inching a ways in front of Nathan, eyes squinting to get a better look.

An unholy scream erupted from the probation worker’s mouth, making Izzy fling herself backwards, away from him. His eyes flew open, still harboring that deranged look, and he seized Kelly’s leg as he had done to her seconds ago. Kelly screamed as well, stamping on his head with her free foot again and again. The screams weren’t enough to mask the horrific squelching noise as foot met flesh. Izzy’s stomach twisted and heaved. She wanted to vomit.

The probation worker’s voice finally faded, and Kelly’s violent stomping ceased. His skull lay on the dirty tile, cracked open like a Kinder egg or morbid piñata. The surprise inside? Life in prison. The girl stood over the body, panting heavily, but the expression of relief on her face soon morphed into on of fear and self-loathing. She turned away, her face stricken and pale under her makeup.

“Yep,” Nathan croaked, his hands moving into his mess of hair. “That’ll do it.”

Alisha stared at Kelly, holding her hand to her mouth in shock. “You killed our probation worker!”

Nathan began shaking his head almost pathologically. “This is very, very bad.”

This was probably the part where Izzy was supposed to say something—make some woeful declaration or panicked screeching. But the others seemed to have that covered. All she could do was stare at the body with unblinking eyes. Or should she call it a corpse? Fuck. Fuck. It was a corpse. The corpse of a person she had just watched die. No, he hadn’t just ‘died’. He didn’t succumb to heart disease or a viral plague. He had been murdered. A murder she was complicit in. Fuck. Fuck, fuck, fuck—

“Fuck!”

Her spontaneous cursing went unnoticed.

“We—we should call the police!” Curtis said in a voice that sounded vaguely hopeful. “It was self-defense!”

“Yeah,” Alisha agreed. “Yeah, yeah, he’s right. We show them the dead boy in the locker, they’ll do some CSI shit and figure it out.”

Izzy felt her head nodding in agreement, but in reality she was probably too much in a haze to fully grasp what was going on. The familiar tingling worked its way from her fingertips down to her hands. The bodies weren’t what she was focusing on anymore. What filled her eyes was the blood—all the blood. It was red and terrible and smelled of copper and rust. The odor filled her nose and mouth. The taste of it lingered on her tongue. It made her want to rip it out.

“They won’t believe os!” Kelly cried, not swayed by the others. But then again she had the most to lose.

“We’ll tell them the truth,” Izzy heard Curtis say. “We stick to our story.”

“And wot’s our story?” Kelly demanded angrily, waving her arms at Curtis like she was having a fit. “That ‘e can turn invisible n’ you can turn back time? It doesn’t matta wot we tell ‘em! They say we were lyin’! They say we killed ‘em bof! Noone’s gonna believe ya—not anymore!”

“She’s right,” Nathan said, nodding his head. “I mean, it’s our word versus—he can’t even talk anymore! There’s no way they’ll believe some upstanding pillar of the community went on some psychopathic rampage! Who’s gonna believe a bunch of fuck-ups like us?” He started snapping his fingers in front of her face, forcing her to blink. “Oi, Ginger! You want to join us? We’ve got a bit of an unpleasant situation unfoldin’ right now.”

Izzy’s mouth fell open and she looked at them all blankly. “I think we should call the police,” she murmured. Her voice didn’t have a trustworthy ring to it, even to her own ears. It was dead and soulless. No conviction whatsoever.

“For fock’s sake!” Kelly groaned. “We can’t fockin’ do that!”

“If there’s no body, there’s no crime.”

The words came from the corner of the room. Izzy’s neck twisted and she found their source—the twitchy kid. He pressed his hair down on his forehead—a nervous tick of some sort. He shuddered under their sudden scrutiny, his eyes redirecting to the floor. “We should bury them under the flyover,” he finished quietly.

Alisha shook her head, sending her frizzy curls flying about. “How are we goin’ to do that? Someone is goin’ to see us!”

“No, no, no, no,” Nathan stammered, “we just give ‘em a little clean-up. Yeah? We put ‘em in those wheelchairs, we wheel ‘em up there, and if anybody sees us we’re just a bunch of young offenders takin’ a couple of specials for a walk in the sunshine!”

He made it sound so fucking simple. 

The blood on her hands was all her own, but that on her shoes wasn’t. That paint can—she had used that on the benches the day before. Her fingerprints were right alongside Kelly’s. She had touched everything at one point or another. That threatening note the probation worker had painted on the side of the building? It was gone. They had done their job too well. Paint an blood. 

Once she got out of the room with all the blood she could think again, her brain was working, albeit poorly. And her brain was telling her that her life was now officially fucked up beyond all recognition. At this point she had no choice but to go along with this shit plan, because the alternative was probably life in prison.

Autopilot. If her brain wasn’t operating at such goddamn reduced capacity, that would be the word it would choose to describe her current state. She as at least one degree removed from what she was doing—aware of her movements but refusing to acknowledge them. Put the bodies in the chair. Strap them in with the duct tape she found in storage. Be sure to cover the tape with their sleeves—better to keep away prying eyes. Someone would have to go ahead of the others with the shovels. Less suspicious. Find a hat for the probation worker to hide that giant dent in his skull. Wannabe’s had been left in the loo, apparently. And finally she found her hands grasping the back of the wheelchair, pushing the bodies up the hill like a kid would push their gran. Or like she was buying groceries.

They burying of the bodies was a largely silent affair. Izzy shuddered each time a car whizzed by on the overpass. In other words she was in a state of constant agitation. With each pass the ground would shake beneath them ever so slightly, leaving her feeling as is she was tilting over the edge of something. Nobody would be able to see them. They had placed themselves in the shadows behind one of the wide, concrete pillars, invisible to the passers by. And any sounds of their nefarious activity would be covered by the cars above and the rushing canal that lay a few meters off. She placed her foot on the edge of her shovel, driving it as deep in the dirt as she could before tossing it off to the side.

By the time they were done digging, she had to offer up an arm and let Curtis drag her out of the pit. The rule was six feet under, right? Between the lot of them they had made it to at least four and a half. They all stepped back as Nathan and Kelly wheeled the bodies towards the giant pit they had dug. Izzy stepped forwards, wincing internally as she peeled the tape away from their arms. Tony and Gary—those were their names, completely irrelevant the day before, now burned into her memory. She was about to bury them, make them disappear and abandon their families, their friends. The very least she could do was know their names before she covered them in dirt.

The tape was unceremoniously shoved into the pocket of her jumpsuit. Izzy made a mental note to burn it later. The less evidence, the better. Kelly and Nathan tipped the wheelchairs forwards, dumping the bodies into the pit. They hid the bottom with a muffled thump, limbs tangled and jutting out at odd angles. A sort of numbness crept through Izzy as she stared down at them. Over the past two days she had been struck by lightening, assaulted by some blokes in an alley, got herself a fucking superpower, and now she was an accomplice to murder. Technically it was self-defense, but the police wouldn’t frame it that way so there was no point in her trying to. Her entire existence was a giant, knitted sweater, and some wanker had just grabbed as string and unravelled the whole fucking lot of it.

“This can not be my life,” she whispered. 

Izzy hadn’t thought anybody had heard her, but Nathan’s eyes flickered in her direction. His face wore the same look hers did—features contorted into a pained cringe, brows furrowed, tensed jaw. His lip quivered slightly, but as soon as he saw her returning his gaze, they twitched, even managing to turn up at the corners. “I’m pretty sure this breaches the terms of my ASBO,” he declared, planting his hands on his hips.

“We don’t tell anyone about this, yeah?” Kelly announced in an authoritative tone. “About the storm or what it did to os of anyfing.”

“We’re about to bury our probation worker,” Nathan added, his voice oddly serious. “This isn’t a time wen we want to draw any attention to ourselves.”

Izzy’s head snapped in Nathan’s direction. There was a sort of level-headed rationality in what he said that was altogether unexpected. He was making sense. Actual sense. Maybe he was only 95% twat, and somewhere deep down a slightly functional human being was hiding away. She took a deep breath and turned to the others. “I don’t see any other options at this point, so fuck it. I’m in.”

“I don’t want anyone to know,” Alisha threw in bitterly. “I can not be a freak.”

They all turned to Curtis. He stood there, a fucking marble statue except for his fists clenching and unclenching, jaw set in some form of defiance. It made Izzy’s stomach wind itself into an uncomfortable knot. In an almost ridiculous twist of fate, Nathan was the one doing the reasoning. “There’s no goin’ back now, man,” he said. “You’re as screwed as the rest of us. Hell, you’re black and famous—you’re probably more screwed!”

That jaw twitched violently as Curtis glowered at them. “I shouldn’t even be here.”

“Yeah, add your name to the fucking list,” Izzy spat. “Are you in or not?”

He didn’t say a word. Sparing one murderous look, he strode to the pile of dirt that had amassed at the side of the pit, driving the shovel in and tossing it on the bodies. One by one, the rest of them fell in, refilling the hole. Izzy repressed the urge to vomit as her shovel cast dirt on their faces.

“So hold on!” Nathan suddenly interjected. “All of you have some kind of ‘special power’. Everyone can do something except me. He can do something—” he jabbed finger at Twitchy “—he can do something and I can’t! That’s ridiculous—look at him! How does that make any sense?!”

“Maybe you can do something,” Twitchy mumbled. “You just haven’t found out what it is yet.”

This explanation was apparently deemed acceptable. “Yeah,” Nathan mused, staring off into the distance. “Yeah, like maybe I can’t feel pain.”

“That’s called analgesia,” Izzy muttered. “You’re actually a lot more likely to die if you’ve got it. It’s a serious medical disorder.”

“Hey, who asked you?”

Kelly slapped him over the head. “Did ya feel that?”

“Jesus!” Nathan exclaimed, batting her away from his precious curls. “Stop hitting me!”

“Maybe you’re just a super-twat,” Izzy supplied bitterly. “You can take the art of twat-itude to epic proportions.”

“Ha ha,” Nathan retorted. “You’re a fucking riot, aren’t ya?”

“Only on Tuesdays.”

Lifting her head, Izzy pushed the stray, sweaty hairs out of her eyes. She surveyed Nathan for a moment as he kept shoveling dirt. When he noticed her looking at him, he stopped as well, standing straight and leaning on the shovel for support. “What is it now, Ginger?” 

Izzy pursed her lips and shook her head, trying to mask the self-consciousness. “Nothing,” she replied with a shrug. “It’s just that I should probably thank you for trying to save my life and all back there. As politeness so dictates.”

He shrugged in return, all nonchalance, and smirked widely. “Anything for a damsel in distress.”

Izzy’s expression hardened, bristling at being referred to a ‘damsel’ in any way, shape, or form. But it wasn’t exactly the best time for indignation. “Right,” she bit out, fiddling with her locket. “So, thanks. There you go.”

“I can think of one or two ways you could thank me,” he replied with a wink. “Very…entertaining and spirited ways…”

Izzy narrowed her eyes at him, her lip curling in distaste. “Are you fucking kidding me right now?” she snapped. “Is there even a kernel of shame in that maladjusted, sex-fueled brain of yours?” He simply made a face and shrugged his shoulders, dragging a derisive snort of laughter from her throat. “I’ll bake you a fucking cake. How about that?”

“Is that a euphemism?”

Izzy gritted her teeth. “No, it’s not a fucking euphemism.”

Nathan jutted out his chin and nodded—disappointed, but not terribly so. “Make it an Italian cream.”

Not another word passed between them until they finished covering the bodies. Curtis and Twitchy—whose name was apparently Simon—took the wheelchairs back to the community center. Kelly and Alisha soon peeled away as well, followed by Nathan. Until she was left there. Alone. Or almost alone. Could she still count the two under the dirt? That might be up for debate.

Izzy continued to stare at the newly turned earth. It seemed so much darker than the rest of the dirt surrounding it. They might as well have left a neon sign that read ‘look for corpses here’ pointing at the spot. She peeled of her sneakers, stomping the dirt down in her sock feet. No shoe tread, no DNA. It was the best she could come up with in the moment, what with all the crime shows they had running on the telly. Would it work? Who fucking knew. But each time she slammed her foot to the ground, she felt more relieved and more sickened with herself. Her feet began to ache. Good.

With one final, frustrated grunt, her foot met the soil below. The surface was solid, not loose like before. It may as well have been concrete she stamped down. The bulge where the bodies lay was mostly unnoticeable. It could be chalked up to natural topography. Breathless, Izzy’s legs buckled beneath her and she sat on the ground. The grave was virtually invisible now. You’d have to look for it. Hard. She wasn’t sure if she should be proud of that or not. 

Gary. Tony. She repeated the names in her head over and over. Her masochistic streak wasn’t going to treat her well through all of this. Clapping her hands on her knees, she pushed herself to her feet, standing over the pit. “I’m sorry,” she whispered under her breath.

On her way back down the hill, sneakers in hand, Izzy dragged her feet though the marks of the wheelchairs, obscuring their tracks. By the time she got back to the changing rooms the others had already gone. Her socks went into a bag, to be burned along with the duct tape in her pocket. Was that paranoid? Probably. But given the events of the day paranoia seemed the most reasonable way to go. Like anything about this day was fucking reasonable.

Sighing loudly, she peeled off her jumpsuit and grabbed her street clothes. Before she yanked her T-shirt over her head, though, she caught her reflection in the mirror. She turned slightly so she could see the tattoos, one on each of her shoulder blades. On the left there were seven tick marks. When she first got it as a fifteen year old mouthy adolescent, there had only been four. She’d added to it since then. On the right here was a lotus—she had gotten that one when she turned eighteen. And then there was the one on her wrist. The triskele. That was her first one, inked at the tender age of fourteen with that ridiculous fake ID of hers. But with Max standing next to her, that creepy bloke Vince hadn’t given a shit.

In a way those tattoos were her biography. They all marked an event. They all had a special meaning. Were some of those meanings woefully cliche? Most definitely yes. The law against tattooing minors came with good reason. She couldn’t make herself regret any of them, though. Each of them had hurt. But then again life hurt, didn’t it? They were the marks she chose to carry, not the ones forced on her.

After today, she’d likely be needing to add another.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter 3 Soundtrack
> 
> 1) Kelly makes a revelation  
> -~-~-~-Too late, too far - Cant
> 
> 2) Running from the probation worker.  
> -~-~-~-I Know Kung-Fu - Shitdisco
> 
> 3) Finding Gary and a near death experience.  
> -~-~-~-Atom Bomb - Fluke
> 
> 4) Burying the bodies.  
> -~-~-~-Hundred Thousand Pieces - Krief
> 
> 5) Izzy cleans herself up.  
> -~-~-~-Dark Child - Marlon Williams
> 
>  
> 
> Please comment/review. It is very much appreciated.


	4. Origin Story

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A chapter on the consequences of alcohol and murder.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Disclaimer: I do not own Misfits. Any similarity in content or dialogue originated with the show.

Fucking ow.

If Izzy's mind been coherent enough to form actual thoughts, that would have been its eloquent proclamation. Her alarm clock blared loudly against the walls of her flat, dragging her kicking and screaming into consciousness. Her head throbbed with each violent beep. The whine she released pushed stale, sour breath past her lips. The inside of her mouth felt of cotton balls and fancy French cheese, wooly and sticky with a bitter aftertaste. Had she died? Was she dead? Because the dry air of her flat had leached all moisture from her skin, leaving her with the youthful bloom of a mummified corpse. She reached out, hand flailing about in an attempt to silence the alarm, but her fingers met with nothing but air.

Left with no other choice, Izzy cracked an eye open, breaking the crusted seal on her eyelids that sleep had left behind. Her face was pressed not into her mattress as she had thought, but into the seat cushion of her sofa. The telly flickered before her eyes, bombarding her retinas with the garish colors of early morning cartoons. Letting out a pathetic groan, she squeezed her eyes shut once more, willing the world to disappear from around her, that she could slip into some vacuum of peace. But the alarm clock continued to shriek. And her head continued to ache.

Hauling herself up, Izzy rubbed her eyes with the heels of her hands in a fruitless attempt to wake her mind up as well as her body. Massaging her temples, she tried to run through the events of the previous day. The latter part of the evening had been swallowed up into a black hole of memory built of red wine and vodka. But the alcohol had feasted on the wrong part. She had bought the liquor on the way home so she could forget. So that, even for a little while, she could stop visualizing it. But it hadn't worked. Blood and vacant eyes still rested at the forefront of her mind.

Feeling a sudden lurch in her stomach, Izzy stumbled to her feet. The unmistakable clank of overturned empty liquor bottles rang in her ears like a gong as she raced to the bin. Falling to her knees and grabbing hold of both sides, she leaned over it and retched. Her stomach twisted with nausea, tying itself into a neat little bow, but nothing came out. No fucking wonder she was so bloody hungover. Last night had been an exclusively liquid diet. Small tears formed in her eyes as her stomach folded and contracted, sending pain shooting through her abdomen over and over again.

"Fuck," she mumbled under her breath, spitting out the foul taste and wiping at the corners of her mouth. Bracing her hands on the sides of the bin, she pushed herself to her feet, tottering slightly as the floor seemed to sway beneath her. Upon gaining some small degree of balance, Izzy stumbled over to the socket next to her mattress where her alarm clock was placed. She ripped the cord from the socket to silence it, petulantly throwing it across the room with a loud crash.

Great. Now she needed to buy a new fucking clock. As if she wasn't broke enough to begin with.

Izzy got her hands on that bottle of Advil and glass of water as soon as possible. Every sound echoed, every movement was uncertain. Her stomach was ready to drop, like she was on a rollercoaster caught in that moment right before the dive. She could feel the lines of her face contorted into a pained wince, all guilt and poor decisions. Uneven and uneasy. The mirror showed her the self-portrait she had expected. Her eyes were red and bloodshot, her hair unruly, her tongue stained purple with red wine, and her makeup of the previous day had smudged horribly, making her look like a raccoon. She was a mess.

She had to work quickly to clean herself up. Today of all days, she couldn't afford to look a mess. After the events of the previous day no weakness could be shown, no evidence of a guilty conscience could be visible. No smeared makeup, no disheveled hair, and certainly no tortured expressions. She scrubbed herself so vigorously under the showerhead she likely shed a layer of skin. Any evidence of wine-stained teeth was brushed away and spat into the sink drain. Eye drops were applied to remove some of that redness. Her hair was brushed back into an appropriately messy bun, her eyes rimmed in light mascara, and all the bruises and abrasions of the past few days successfully concealed with makeup. Last step, she plastered on a wide smile and the end result was a fresh-faced, youthful, innocent appearance she hadn't even had when she was a kid.

The smile looked genuine. Over the years Izzy had become well practiced in the art of smiling and pretending that all was well with the world. Today was the final exam of that particular brand of deception.

As she turned to leave her crap-heap of a flat, Izzy's eyes fell on a tin. It sat on the crappy card table where she ate her meals, a note taped to the top that read 'To give to twat'. Fuck, that was right. She had promised Nathan a cake, and that Victoria sponge was the most promising that Tesco's had to offer. Quickly grabbing her bag, several water bottles, and that tin, she made her way out the door.

By the time Izzy made it to the community center, all four of her water bottles were empty, rattling at the bottom of her bag, and she had yet to even begin needing to pee. She did, however, vomit spectacularly into a stranger's outdoor garbage bin. Twice. Her body had yet to resume accepting fluids. Her head still felt like it was going to explode, and the sunlight stabbed at her eyes even through the dark glass of her aviators. For once she was grateful for the dim fluorescent lighting the community center afforded. The shade felt like a warm embrace from an old friend.

Izzy wasn't at all early this time, but as she made her way to the vending machines she could hear the same seismic snores of the day before. After the purchase of two more water bottles, she dragged her feet back up the stairs to Nathan's makeshift bedroom. His position somehow managed to be even less flattering than the last one she found him in. Somehow, though, it managed to be a bit adorable. While he was asleep, and not speaking, he managed to look like an innocent kid. He lay there, sprawled out with limbs hanging off his makeshift mattress. Even unconscious he took up as much space as possible, imposing himself upon the landscape.

Izzy crouched down next to him and extracted a pen from her bag. "Nathan," she whispered, sticking the pen in his ear. He mumbled incoherently, aimlessly swatting the pen away from his face. Izzy repressed a small giggle and started poking at his nose, which elicited an awkward snort. Finally, she leaned in close to his ear. "WAKE UP!"

"JESUS!" Nathan twitched violently, rolling fully off his mattress and collapsing to the floor. Izzy fell back against the balcony railing, shoulders shaking in laughter as she watched Nathan flop about. He looked around wildly like he was searching for an invisible attacker. When his eyes fell on Izzy, a grumpy old man scowl tugged at the corners of his lips. "Stop doing that!" he grumbled. "And stop fucking laughing! It's not fucking funny!"

"That depends on the angle," she snorted. "From mine it was beautiful. You should have seen the look on your face. You looked like you were about to piss yourself."

Letting out a groan, Nathan scrambled back onto the mattress and collapsed onto his pillow. His curls splayed out around his head like some camp kid's disastrous arts and crafts project. "Jesus fucking Christ," he whined. "Love, you're gonna have to start knockin' or somethin'. I could be havin' a wank in here and I don't need you waltzin' in and interruptin' me. That shit totally messes with my process. You walk in with that same disapprovin' badger face like my mum. No thank you."

"Really?" Izzy scoffed, wrinkling her nose at him. "That's your go-to for invasion of privacy? That I'd interrupt you having a wank?"

A bizarrely self-satisfied grin covered his face. "Well statistically speaking it is one of the more likely scenarios."

"Those must be some seriously traumatized Superman sheets," she muttered, her lip curling slightly in distaste. "If you want people to knock, you should consider getting a door. I hear those play a pretty fundamental role in the maintenance of one's privacy."

"Probably, but then you gotta go shoppin' an' shit. Who's got the time?"

"You do," Izzy deadpanned. "You're homeless and unemployed—you've literally got nothing but time."

Izzy sank back against the railing, drawing her knees up to her chest and wrapping her arms around them. Nathan's 'room' was a thing to behold, all the chaos of a natural disaster and the cleanliness of the men's bathroom at a football stadium. Soiled sheets, errant pizza crusts, and strewn laundry which included one particularly crusty sock whose purpose she did not want to dwell on. And for some reason it smelled faintly of burnt soup.

All of a sudden her stomach lurched and Izzy's hand flew up, pressing her fingers over her lips. She was most likely beyond the gastrointestinal acrobatics portion of her hangover, but it wasn't worth the risk. Nathan pushed himself up on his elbows and gave her a strange look. "You okay, love? You're looking a bit peaky. Green-ish."

Izzy blew out a long breath, lips pinched into a small 'o' as she waited for the wave to pass. "You mean other than the fact that I'm complicit in a murder?" she finally drawled, raising her eyebrows at him. "I may or may not be suffering from one of the least fun hangovers of my lifetime."

"Ha! Nice!" Nathan cackled.

"Not really," she muttered. "It feels like someone's shoved a shitty TV in my head and it's playing nothing but static. Or I'm being stalked by a swarm of bees. They're dying, but they all somehow found me." She picked idly at her fingernails, trying to achieve a relative degree of calm by appearing calm. "Are you nervous?" she asked. "About today, I mean. Are you afraid someone will find out?"

Nathan clambered to his feet and stretched noisily. "Nah, man," he sighed. "It's like the perverted virgin said. No body, no crime. We just go about our business...anyone asks us if we've seen anything we just say no. Who's gonna believe we killed two people and completely cleaned up the crime scene? We're just a bunch of fuck-ups—we lack both the resolve and the commitment to detail."

"Yeah, you're probably right." Izzy cleared her throat, reaching for her bag. "Anyway, I came to give you this," she said, pulling out the cake tin and tossing it to his feet. "One cake, as promised."

Nathan looked down at the tin, snatching up the note that was still taped to the lid. "That's real nice, Ginger," he scoffed. "Real nice. I risk life and limb and save your arse, and you call me a twat." He placed a hand over his heart and stared down at her with wide, expressive eyes. "Words hurt, you know. I might even need some therapy to work through this massive emotional trauma."

"Whatever, man," she sighed. "I promised cake, there's your fucking cake. And you didn't save my life, it was that bullshit power of mine."

"Well, yeah," he returned, planting his hands on his hips, "but it's the thought that counts isn't it?"

"Hence the cake," she muttered, waving vaguely in his direction.

Nathan peered down at the tin again, and frowned in earnest. "Hey, I asked for a fucking Italian cream!"

"They were out of Italian cream."

Nathan let out a heavy scoff. "Well did you look?"

"Nope." Nathan opened his mouth to respond, but anything he might have said was drowned out by the loud rumbling of Izzy's stomach. She had shifted from hangover-nausea to hunger-nausea. Or worse, was suffering from a combination of both. Grumbling to herself, Izzy pushed herself to her feet and dragged her heels back to the stairs. "The others are gonna be here soon," she called over her shoulder. "If you don't want them to know you're a homeless squatter who takes hobo showers in the sink, I suggest you make yourself decent. If that's even possible for you."

"Oi!" Nathan shouted after her. "They have showers here, you know! I may be homeless, but at least I'm smart about it!"

Izzy snorted lightly and trudged past the vending machines, the greasy crisps within simultaneously alluring and off-putting, and made her way towards front doors. Nathan was a complete dickhead, but his mindless prattle and lewd remarks did have a way of making her forget about the fact that her life was currently unravelling around her. Which was something she needed at the moment.

Pushing her way outside, Izzy walked out to the edge of the patio and leaned on the railing, staring out across the lake. Such an act should be soothing, but the Estate had a way of taking pleasant things and turning them wrong. The gentle, lapping waves were strewn with rubbish and a vague scent of sulfur wafted in with the wind. A unpleasant exterior that likely concealed even more gruesome depths. Two-headed fish, malformed due to toxic chemical spills. Turtles caught in plastic six-pack rings people had chucked. More dead bodies. The possibilities were endless, and on a day like this one none of them would surprise her. It was a crime, really. Take something beautiful, and let something as tragic as life happen to it.

Izzy's head still ached and her stomach remained a twisted mess. Whether the root cause was her hangover or her persistent, gnawing anxiety, she couldn't quite say. But in her experience, there was one thing that could sort out that disgusting, sick feeling. Reaching into her bag, she pulled out her lighter and the emergency spliff she kept stashed for occasions such as this. It had been her respite since she was fifteen, staving off those panic attacks. With Allan around she kept it quiet and hidden—impressionable youth and all that—but if a puff or two kept her from hyperventilating her way into passing out, she was all for it. Especially as those pills the kid-shrink had prescribed left her head spinning and her mind clouded. Lighting it, Izzy brought the spliff to her lips and inhaled deeply. She held the smoke in her lungs a good long time before exhaling it through her nostrils, her eyes falling shut as she waited for the calm to start.

Letting her mind float, Izzy stared at the waves and listened to them crash into the concrete barrier. It was oddly hypnotic, a bit like a lullaby. Or maybe the weed was just beginning to kick in. The harsh rays of the sun seem to dim around her, and the clouds' resemblance to cotton candy was beginning to make her hungry. Izzy snatched one of her water bottles from her bag and twisted it open, taking a small, tentative sip. Her throat was grateful and her stomach didn't object. Tipping back the bottle, she guzzled down the rest of its contents in record time. Crumpling the plastic, she let it drop from her hands into the water below. That lake was already fucked anyway. As was the Pacific Ocean, if that documentary on the great garbage patch was telling the truth. And anyways, she was a young offender, wasn't she? Might as well embrace chaos and anarchy at all turns.

Fuck, now she felt guilty for littering as well as the murders. Consciences were a fucking bummer.

"Are you awright?" demanded a voice from somewhere near.

Glancing over her shoulder, Izzy found Kelly standing behind her. The girl had already changed into her orange jumpsuit, leaving Izzy to wonder just how long she had been standing on the patio. All done up in orange, Kelly looked like a giant cheeto. But then again everything was beginning to look like food—Izzy had always been a hungry stoner. What Kelly did not look like, however, was someone who had stomped a man's head in the previous day. Gone was the streaked mascara, and her hair was once again scraped back and away from her face. She switched out her shoes too,which was probably for the best as the last pair was steeped in incriminating evidence. The girl's nose was wrinkled and her lip curled. On anybody else that expression would have looked like contempt, but on Kelly it read as something else. Perhaps even something close to concern. Which was odd.

Izzy offered up a casual smile. "I'm fine," she sighed, holding out the joint as an offering of friendship or proposal of a truce. "It's all good. Peaches and cream."

Kelly sidled up next to Izzy and took the joint, but not without shooting her a look of intense skepticism. Very demonstrative eyebrows that girl had. Perhaps because of the vast about of forehead created by that tight ponytail. A sizeable canvass upon which her contempt could paint itself. "You sure about tha?" she drawled, taking a long drag. "'Cos yesterday in the locka room ya looked dead weird. Like you was 'avin' a fit or somefin'."

Izzy bit down on her lip, her smile shifting from superficial to genuine. That sort of frankness was rare, and therefore to be appreciated. As harsh as it might be, it was a lot better than the bullshit platitudes most people spoonfeed you. "You don't polish up your opinion, do you?"

"Wha?"

Izzy shook her head and turned to stare at the water below. "Nothing, nothing."

The ends of a dirty blonde ponytail suddenly entered her plane of vision. Kelly had leaned her back against the railing, hanging over the edge just to level Izzy with her "look". Somehow the girl managed to look sympathetic, expectant, and a little bit pissed off all at once. Izzy spun around, mimicking Kelly's posture, and snatched the joint from between her fingers. "Look, I just don't like blood, okay?" she said, inhaling deeply. "It freaks me out, makes me sick. Call it a phobia."

"Why does it make ya sick?"

Izzy didn't want to answer that question. Hell, she didn't want to think about the answer to that question. It took her to that bad place, the place she wanted to wipe from her past entirely, but the universe kept throwing in her face. Kelly stared hard at Izzy, her face contorted in intense concentration. Izzy's eyes, however, stayed fixed on the railing, peeling the flaked paint away in large chunks.

"The otha day you said yous was in fosta care," Kelly said. "How'd ya get there? Wha' 'appened to your parents?"

Izzy froze. How had Kelly known she was thinking about her mum? Oh, that's right. She was a fucking mind reader. Because that was now a thing that was possible. The girl probably knew half the story already—no sense in hiding anything from her. The truth was unavoidable and lies would inevitably come back to bite her in the arse. She tipped her head back, blowing a plume of smoke into the air above their heads before flicking the spliff to the ground. "Never knew my dad," she muttered, using the toe of her shoe to grind the dying embers into the concrete. "He fucked off somewhere before I was born."

"An' your mum?" Kelly pressed.

"She died."

"'Ow did she die?"

Her eyebrows drawing together in a frown, Izzy squinted at the girl next to her. Kelly had the uncanniest ability to simultaneously demonstrate completely conflicting emotions. Somehow her features managed to convey apathy and concern, hostility and generosity, intense boredom and acute interest. But somehow it added up to a cold, but vaguely maternal aura. Then again Izzy was accustomed to fairly distant parental figures. "The bad way," was all Izzy could manage to say out loud, but Kelly nodded in understanding. Apparently her power filled in the gaps. "Look," Izzy snapped. "I don't want your pity. And I don't want theirs. So could you do me a favor and just keep it to yourself. Just—just leave it, okay?"

"It's not like I give a shit," Kelly grunted, folding her arms across her chest as that trademark defensiveness kicked in. "It's none o' their focking business, an' it's not like I wanted to know. It's dis stupid powa, man. I 'eard your thoughts yesterday, an' you seemed really upset, so I figured if ya wanna talk about it...."

The crease between Izzy's eyebrows deepened. "Thanks," she said, her tone hesitant.

Perhaps she had misjudged Kelly. Pinning her as violent and somewhat unstable was an easy enough thing to do what with the overt hostility and hitting and yelling, not to mention the fact that she was in community service for the crime of assault. Also, the gruesome murder. But as it turned out she was actually kind of....nice?

Fuck. That meant she had to be nice too. Playground rules apply.

"Hey, Kelly," she said, clearing her throat awkwardly, "I should probably apologize to you. For, you know, calling you a chav. Or thinking it at least. So......sorry."

Kelly shifted uncomfortably. "Thanks."

"Just so you know," Izzy continued, "I might think something like that again. Or maybe even say it out loud. I know I can be kind of a bitch, but until then—" she held out her hand "—I'm Izzy. Nice to meet you and all that shit."

For a moment, Kelly stared at Izzy's outstretched and with a wary eye, as if she was trying to determine whether or not it was diseased. Eventually, though, she took that hand in what turned out to be an unexpectedly limp handshake given the girl's upper body strength. The awkward eye contact between the two held about a millisecond before gazes were averted.

"Ya want some gum," Kelly muttered.

Nose wrinkled curiously, Izzy peered down at the crumpled cardboard in Kelly's hand. Spearmint. Objectively the worst type of mint, but it would do. Not smelling like weed would probably be for the best seeing as the police would inevitably be joining them for tea and biscuits with a side of interrogation. Silently, she took a stick and shoved it in her mouth, chewing loudly. The two of them remained as such, in that comfortably awkward silence, chewing gum as the sun beat down on their necks. Was this a truce? Was this solidarity? Who the fuck could tell.

After a few moments, a disembodied head poked out between the doors. Simon, appearing exceptionally vampiric as he flinched in the face of direct silence, stammered out the news. Somebody was in the probation worker's office.

Soon enough, all six of the ASBO shitheads found themselves shut in the main hall, all clad in their jumpsuits, and all with no fucking idea what to do. The community center had swallowed them all whole, a collective Jonah in the belly of the whale. Already chewed up, waiting to be spit out. The shades to the probation worker's office were drawn, leaving them with only the hulking shadow of an unknown stranger upon whom to pin all of their fears and anxieties. Would it be some James Bond villain? A pudgy old cop? Miss Marple? Who exactly held her fate in their hands?

If only murder came with a 'how to' manual. How could they come off as innocent? Feigning ignorance of said crime would probably be step one. They saw nothing. They knew nothing. They were Jon Snow.

A clock sat on the wall, mocking them with the time. One minute. Five minutes. Twenty-three minutes. Each tick of the second hand heightened the aura of anxiety. It grew thicker in the room, filling her lungs until she choked on it. Though that was most likely the point. Whoever was rifling through that room, they were letting the ASBO shitheads sweat it out, twiddling their thumbs idly as they waited for one of the idiot kids incriminate themselves. For the most part her fellow morons held up under the pressure. Simon's baseline anxiety served as cover enough for him. Alisha, Kelly, and Curtis were probably a little too quiet, but this was more than compensated for by a series of increasingly loud, bizarre, and altogether nonsensical rants on Nathan's part. Meanwhile Izzy pretended to read, her eyes sliding unseeing over the words on the page between flicking glances at the office.

Finally, a full hour after they were slated to start snaking the clogs out of the communal showers, the office door creaked open. It took everything Izzy had not to sit up and ogle the person. She subtly curled down the cover of her paperback, peeking over the top. To say the reveal was underwhelming would be putting it mildly. The person stepping into the main hall was no jackbooted stormtrooper. No, the person who marched up to the lot of them wore prim ballet flats.

The woman before them was small with dark hair and pale to the point of potential anemia—a few shades less corpse-like than Simon. From the looks of it she had had a long night, dark circles under her eyes and limp hair. The lines around her mouth seemed to form parentheses, emphasizing the grim twist of her bloodless lips. In her hands she clutched a clipboard, a chained pen dangling from it, swinging idly from side to side. Great. The key to Izzy's fate lay with a low-level bureaucrat and whatever papers she had attached to that fucking clipboard. At least it wasn't the police.

"Finally," Izzy drawled, clambering to her feet and folding her arms across her chest. "I'm not gonna have to make up that hour, am I? And if I do, I'd like that to be arranged as soon as possible."

"Ugh, you and your fucking hours," Nathan whined, rocking back on his heels. "Would you stop being such a damn arse-kisser?"

Whether or not he was intentionally playing along Izzy couldn't say, but his authentic moaning and groaning did help sell the bit. The woman didn't respond to either of them, instead taking a few steps forward and waving them to the center of the room. "Please," she said, waving more frantically as they slowly migrated together in an uncoordinated, zombie-like shuffle. "Please, form a line." They began to move to stand one in front of the other, but the woman shook her head frantically. "No, a horizontal line. I—I have something to share with you all."

"What's going on?" Izzy asked in her most confused-sounding voice as the lot of them shifted into place. "What happened to that other guy? Toby?"

Again, the woman's lips stayed pinched together. The look she spared Izzy was sad and her eyes shone a dull red, like she had been crying. "Alright," she said, grasping the clipboard so tight her knuckles turned white. "There's been an incident. Gary and my colleague Tony have both been reported missing." The woman paused for a moment, clearly studying all of their reactions, so Izzy assembled her features into an expression that demonstrated both shock and confusion. "Their families are very worried about them. Have you seen anything unusual, anything at all?"

After a respectful moment of silence, Izzy opened her mouth to respond in the negative. Out of the corner of her eye, though, she saw a timid, tentative hand lift into the air. A hand which was attached to Nathan Young. A hand which she would very soon be removing and tossing into the lake. Fuck. Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck. He was going to say something idiotic. The bloke had nothing but idiotic things to say. She was standing right next to the bastard, and the fact that she was unable to give him a swift kick to the balls was a crime in and of itself.

"A few days ago," he said in an earnest voice that made Izzy cringe, "I go into the toilets. Tony and Gary were in there—they're buck naked—"

Less than two sentences in and Izzy couldn't help but cover her eyes, trying to block out the ridiculous spectacle she knew was about to take place.

"—Tony's got him by the hair, and he's just doin' him. Doggy style."

Cue the community theater portion of this nightmare. The theatrical grunts and moans that Nathan gave off reverberated against the walls of the hall. A damned chorus of mimed orgasms echoed in Izzy's ears, and her face creased into an involuntary wince. Dear Lord. What kind of slow motion train accident was she being forced to witness? It was morbid curiosity that made her peek through her fingers, and it must have been through sheer luck that what she saw didn't turn her to stone. Nathan was, in fact, miming some rather exuberant sex—thrusting hips and apparently some light spanking—as the probation worker woman looked on in abject horror. With one last elaborate smack of an imaginary arse, Nathan let out a loud sigh and planted his hands on his hips.

He took a moment to survey his audience, all of whom wore differing shades of alarm and disdain. "Anyways," Nathan barreled on, unfazed by their shock, "I'm guessing that they've run off to continue their illicit homosexual affair, and I ask you, in this world of intolerance and prejudice who are we—who are we to condemn them."

Letting her hand drop from her face, Izzy took a good look at their new probation worker. Nathan's display hadn't inspired any anger or frustration like she thought it would. The pale, stricken complexion, the slight tremble of the lower lip....the woman looked to be on the verge of tears. "I apologize for him," Izzy said, jerking her thumb in Nathan's direction. "He was dropped on his head during his formative years. Multiple times."

The woman didn't say a word. She didn't do anything—she just left, shoes tapping quickly against the tile as she darted for the door. As soon as the latch clicked behind him, all heads in the room swiveled to stare down Nathan. He beamed back, oblivious to the waves of hostility being channeled in his direction. "Well," he declared, "I think that went pretty well."

It was now that Izzy saw fit to smack Nathan on the back of his head. Hard.

"OW!" Nathan cried out, ducking down and waving his arms about like he was trying to fend off a flock of seagulls. "Ah! What the hell was that for?!"

"Are you fucking joking?" Curtis shouted from the other side of the room. "Do you really even need to ask the question?"

"I was just givin' it a little color, man," Nathan said, rubbing at the back of his head. "Keepin' it interesting."

"The point isn't to keep it interesting, you idiot," Izzy growled, hitting him again. "The point is to make it as boring and uneventful as possible. Jesus fucking Christ."

The sounds of her frustration ringing against the walls slowly faded until the lot of them were left with metaphorical crickets and somebody's absurdly loud breathing. At first they sat on edge, all tense muscles and tingling fingertips, but slowly that sense of apprehension began to slip away. Like the fadeout of sound at the end of a chaotic action movie. Izzy could almost feel the collective heart rate of the room slow, settling on a dull, calm thump. Each of them looked around the groups, at a loss of what step to take next.

"Is tha it?" Kelly's harsh voice interrupted, shattering the silence. "Like....wot do we do now?"

The answer? A round of perplexed shrugs.

Within a few minutes it became abundantly clear that the new probation worker had no intention of returning, a case study in unprofessional behavior that they were all quite grateful for. While the rest of the gang made their way up to the roof, Izzy was left with one last mad dash to the toilets. Because such was her life.

Luckily enough, this last exercise in gastric distress appeared to be one of closure. As Izzy clutched the unsettlingly stained porcelain—already planning a routine of sanitization—the final twist of her stomach left her not with that unsettled feeling, but one of relief. The agitation faded, and some kind of temporary inner calm rose in her chest. She was done for the day. Was she safe? Fuck no. But she was in stasis. The bandaid covering the bullet wound stopped the blood flow, if only for a moment.

As the hacking and spluttering came to a stop, Izzy toppled back from the toilet. She landed on her arse and her head hit the door to the stall with a loud thump, but the pain blooming from her tailbone and skull didn't stop her from letting out a soft laugh. She wasn't going to jail—not today at least. She found herself hoping beyond all hope that she was alone in that room, as her lungs heaved with increasingly frantic laughter. The sound bouncing off the tiles would bring about its own fair share of questioning.

Letting out one final sigh Izzy crept out of her stall, eyes darting left and right in a belated attempt at subtlety. But she was, in fact, alone. Alone, laughing in a public toilet. As she marched out of the room, she caught a glimpse of herself in the mirror. It was not a reflection she would label 'flattering', but it was not the Medusa-esque monstrosity she had met with that morning.

Stomping her way to the roof, Izzy made a quick detour through Nathan's so-called 'living quarters', snapping up that cake tin on her way to the roof. As she opened the door, the light hit her like a wall, physically pushing her back into the shadows until she could fully prepare herself. The sun shone brighter when you weren't going to be looking at it from behind bars. Though the last gasp of her hangover did not fully appreciate that sentiment's poetic nature. As soon as she stepped through the doorway's shadow, her sunglasses were shoved as far up the bridge of her nose as they could possibly go.

The roof was oddly welcoming given its rather onerous surroundings. The sun had yet to reach its apex, bathing the scene in slanting rays of yellow light. Sofa, lounge chairs, even an imitation Persian rug were already laid out for them, no doubt courtesy of the last round of ASBO arseholes. Hell, they were living in the lap of relative luxury. Up here the air smelled fresher somehow, out of the range of car exhausts and rotting garbage. Birds, if indeed the Estate had any surviving birds given the toxic waste situation, were probably chirping. The landscape looked less grey. Or maybe that was just a function of her state of mind.

The five other shitheads stood at the edge of the roof, silhouetted against the skyline of the Estate. Somehow, from that particular angle, then looked larger than most of the buildings. A monument to the wasted youth of Britain that would stand and proudly announce their fuckery to the world at large. And all of them, massive figures that they were, were staring down at the street below.

Izzy took several strides forwards and collapsed into a faded orange chair facing them. Yanking the top off the cake tin, she tossed it to the across the roof like a frisbee. "Probation worker's still down there?" she inquired casually.

Simon was the only one to bother turning around, his eyes still hesitant as they glanced in her direction. "Yes."

Nodding to herself, Izzy carved out a piece of the cake with her fingers. Her stomach had been running on empty far, far too long. The overly sweet sponge cake practically dissolved in her mouth, most likely due to Tesco's overuse of corn syrup, but the food came as a relief all the same. "You realize that staring at her like that is highly suspicious, right?" she called out. "She's going to wonder why you're all creeping."

"She's looked at the roof," Simon observed. "She's seen us."

"Great job, guys," Izzy mumbled, licking her fingers clean of the 'raspberry' filling. "Excellent powers of deception."

"Now she's gone."

"Brilliant."

"Well," Nathan declared, taking a long drag from his cigarette, "I think that we've gotten away with it."

Curtis let out a pronounced scoff and squared his sculpted shoulders in Nathan's direction. "Do you actually believe that?" he asked. "Or are you just really dumb?"

"I actually believe that!" Nathan exclaimed almost happily.

"Those two options aren't mutually exclusive," Izzy interjected. "The fact that he believes that should be evidence that he is, in fact, really dumb."

"Who asked you, Ginger?" Nathan scoffed.

"Nobody."

Nathan broke ranks with the rest of them, turning around so she could fully observe his contemptuous, yet also somehow jovial, sneer. His witty retort, however, stalled on his tongue as he found her shoving a ragged piece of Victoria Sponge into her mouth. Izzy smiled in the face of his obvious dismay. "Hey!" he protested. "Hey, that's my cake! I earned that with my ridiculously manly and altruistic actions."

Izzy made a face and shrugged. "And yet here I am, busy both eating cake and not giving a shit. After that bollocks you pulled downstairs, your cake privileges have been revoked. No cake for you."

Nathan planted his hands on his hips and gave her a sly look. "Is that a euphemism?"

"No, it's not a fucking euphemism," Izzy scoffed.

"Oh!" Nathan exclaimed. "So you are down for—"

"I'd rather skip naked through a field of poison oak."

The coy smile and exaggerated wink were not the response Izzy had aimed for. "We can do that first, love," he smirked. "Whatever gets the juices flowing, ya know?"

The eye roll that followed was so pronounced, it was a wonder Izzy's eyes didn't pop right out of her head. Instead of offering up a response, she carved out an exceptionally large piece of cake. Her cheeks puffed out like a hamster, she struggled to chew. Which was apparently attracting unwanted attention, and not from the usual member of the group.

"Are you going to eat that whole thing?" Alisha demanded, her lip curling into a sneer.

Izzy swallowed heavily and shot the girl a wan smile. "Why yes, Alisha. Yes, I am.'

Alisha let out a heavy scoff and folded her arms across her chest. "Those jumpsuits only have so much room, ya know."

"We're living on the wrong side of the law," Izzy drawled. "I'll risk it."

"Ginger's got the right idea," Nathan said, pointing emphatically at her. "We should be livin' large! We just beat the system, we've got fuckin' superpowers...." His rant trailed off, leaving him with a look of frustration. Nathan rocked back on his heels, arms planted on his hips, and let out a long groan. Lips pursed in thought, he scanned the rooftop, eyes dwelling on each of them. "I mean I was there!" he suddenly declared. "I should have one of these bullshit powers."

"Ya can 'ave mine," Kelly spat angrily. "You wanna know wot people are thinkin' about you?"

Izzy wrinkled her nose. In all truth, Kelly's power did seem like absolute shit. Izzy had enough angst rattling around in her own head, she sure as hell didn't need anyone else's bullshit in there as well. Sure it had its practical applications—covert intelligence, poker, cultivating blackmail information from friends and acquaintances—but the downside was not worth it. The world was too loud already. Then again, she wouldn't want Alisha's power either. The girls had gotten the short end of the stick in this little misadventure.

Apparently Nathan agreed with her. About Kelly's power, that is. He would probably kill for Alisha's.

"Not so much, no," he said, leering at Kelly. "I want something good, you know something from the A-list."

"Maybe you can fly," Simon suggested hesitantly.

Alisha snorted with derision. "He's not going to be able to fly."

"Now hold on a second," Izzy said quickly, holding up a hand. "I think we should test that theory before we totally dismiss it. Quick, Nathan, jump off the roof."

"Ha, ha, Ginger," he replied, making a face at her. "You're a fucking riot, you are."

Izzy shrugged casually and took a long sip of her water. "I do my best."

She went in for another helping of cake, but before she managed to extract a piece, a hand darted forwards and seized the cake tin. Izzy looked up with angry eyes, a shout of accusation at the ready, only to see Nathan chuck the tin and the cake within it over the edge of the roof. Izzy sat, mouth hanging open for a full six seconds before she heard the muffled clatter of the tin against the pavement below.

"What the fuck, man?"

Nathan darted forward, grabbing her by the upper arm and ushering her off the chair. "Up you go, love. There we are."

As Izzy pulled back to the rest group, Nathan clambered onto the chair, staring at the sky with all the earnestness of someone who had seen home for the first time in years. He squatted low, the chair rocking slightly against the uneven slope of the roof. Finally he pushed off, hand stretched above him and grasping at the air as gravity dragged him back down. His descent back to earth was not a graceful one, his foot hitting the ground at an angle and causing him to careen forwards. "Awwww, nope," he said, grunting in pain. "That's not it. No flyin'."

This conversation was too many levels of bizarre. Here she was, discussing superpowers with a bunch of delinquents with no sense of irony whatsoever. Allan would have a fit if he knew this was happening. She could picture him hunched over a pile of comic books, pouring over every frame with that stupid smile and bright eyes. Over 24 hours of this bullshit and it still hadn't quite sunk in. Superpowers. She had a superpower.

"So what happens now?" Curtis asked, looking around at them all. "Is this it? Are we gonna be like this forever?"

Izzy snorted. "I don't think that's really a question we can answer. It's not like there's a manual for this kind of shit."

Simon cleared his throat quietly like he wanted to say something. "What if we're meant to be, like, superheroes?"

"You lot, superheroes," Nathan scoffed. "No offense, but in what kind of fucked up world would that be allowed to happen? Superheroes—I love this guy, you prick!"

"I don't know," Izzy said, draping her arm over Simon's shoulders. "I've always wanted to solve crime with a plucky side-kick."

"Wot if there's loads of people like os all ova town?"

"No," Nathan said, shaking his head, "that kind of thing only happens in America. This will fade away. I'm tellin' ya by this time next week, it'll be back to the same old boring shit."

The six of them stood at the edge of the roof, staring out at the water in front of them. Izzy felt like part of some strange iconic image that belonged on the cover of some cartoon.

Had they gotten away with it? Could she stop freaking out now? Was it over?

The answer was probably no. Scratch that, the answer was definitely no. But today wasn't the day for that. For today the answer was a big, resounding yes, because Izzy wasn't sure that she could survive another hangover like the one she woke up with that morning.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please leave kudos and comments. It's very much appreciated and feeds the muse that lives in my basement.
> 
>  
> 
> Chapter 4 – Origin Story Soundtrack
> 
> Waking up and getting ready in the morning in the face of a hangover of epic proportions.
> 
> -~-~-~-Follow You Down - Black River Delta (I like to think of the drums here as the pounding of her head)
> 
> Walking to the community center and finding Nathan.
> 
> -~-~-~-Mae Kha Som Tam - Onuma Singsiri
> 
> Smoking a joint and talking with Kelly.
> 
> -~-~-~-Bruckpocket's Lament - The Heavy
> 
> Izzy joins that gang on the roof.
> 
> -~-~-~-Johnny Marr - The Rebels of Tijuana
> 
> The last image of them standing on the roof, overlooking the Estate. End Chapter.
> 
> -~-~-~-Dog-end Of A Day Gone By - Love and Rockets


End file.
